literary hoohah
She-Wolves was one of those books that I had heard about for ages, and kept meaning to read, but for some reason never got around to - laziness, too many other books to read, a million reasons. So I decided to put it on my wish list for Christmas and birthday books last year, and… Continue reading She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor (2011)
I bought my copy of Jane Austen at Home while on holiday in Devon, when I ran out of reading material (first time in my life that I only packed one book, silly me). I ended up reading it mostly after the holiday, but starting it in picturesque Devon only added to my joy at… Continue reading Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley (2017)
I saw this book at a conference last year, and it sat on my reading list for months until I received it for my birthday in January. I was a bit apprehensive about reading it as I knew it wouldn't exactly be a light read, and the paperback is 429 pages (not counting the appendix,… Continue reading The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor (2016)
I recently tweeted about this - apologies to any of my followers for the repetition here. It's just that I have often, in my life, thought about writing a book. I used to want to write a novel, and actually managed to write one in my late teens, though I fear it is just over-emotional… Continue reading Things I Think I Could Write a Book About
I read a lot of books, but I also read a lot of other stuff that doesn't require quite so much concentration and/or time. A lot of this is book reviews and blog posts, but it varies. Here is what I have been reading recently: Fern Riddell's article on History Today - Sanitising the Suffragettes:… Continue reading Things I’m reading that aren’t books
I first read Alone in Berlin in 2011 just after I'd left university. I'd read a lot of books about the Second World War for a course at university, and my further reading (and time on Twitter) led me to this novel. It was only translated into English in 2009, so in 2011 it was… Continue reading Re-reading: Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada (1947)
This is another overdue blog post, but one that I've really been looking forward to writing. I read 31 books in 2016, of varying quality, but overall it was a good reading year. I tried to branch out, accepting a total of eight review copies from publishers - which is a lot for me these… Continue reading Looking back on the books of 2016
As I said in my last post, life has rather gotten in the way of blogging over the last month or so (probably more than that), so I am only just getting around to organising posts I meant to write and publish a while ago... First I must ask you to cast your mind back… Continue reading Overdue update on Christmas and birthday books
More than one of my fellow reviewers on GoodReads wrote that reading this book is more than that - you 'live it' as well. It is an experience I will never forget. If This is a Woman took me ten days to read, which for me is a long time - but then it is… Continue reading If This is a Woman by Sarah Helm: A Reading Experience
I’d had this on my reading list for a while, and when I decided to sack off TBR 20 (we all knew it was coming - more in another blog post to come) I went to Waterstones in Oxford, and this was one the three books I bought (three! Such a delight. Lots of points… Continue reading Witches: James I and the English Witch Hunts by Tracy Borman
