Search
Aug 8, 20231 min read
1083. Jo Browning Wroe -Terrible Kindness
This a wonderful book, about singing, male friendship, and embalming, so an interesting combination. A talented singer follows his dead...
Nov 20, 20221 min read
1030. Lucy Worsley - Agatha Christie
I really enjoyed her book about Jane Austen, but found this a bit dull. Having no interest in Agatha Christie or her books probably...
Aug 8, 20221 min read
1003. Dawnie Walton - The Final Revival Of Opal & Nev
Very different and quite strange. A fictionalised documentary history of a singing duo, Nev a brummie who escapes to the US to pursue...
Aug 5, 20221 min read
1002. John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos
This was on TV recently, a modern adaptation of a book written in the 1950s, so I thought I would read the book. The adaptation changes...
Dec 17, 20211 min read
923. Lucy Worsley - Jane Austen At Home
This is really good – I expected a rather frothy and lightweight book from a woman who likes to prance around in period costume in her TV...
Nov 24, 20201 min read
829. Evie Wyld - All The Birds, Singing
A wonderful book, read it before (177 & 8) and still difficult. So, just to help out any other baffled reader, the even numbered chapters...
Nov 3, 20201 min read
824. Evie Wyld - After The Fire, A Still Small Voice
Bought this after indexing this blog and remembering 177 & 8. Didn’t enjoy it at all, 2 obscure narratives about young men in Australia...
Apr 27, 20201 min read
770. Holly Watt - To The Lions
Paddy recommended this, having heard the author on Women’s Hour. Although it has been widely praised, I thought it was rubbish, well that...
Apr 9, 20201 min read
764. Francesca Wade - Square Haunting
One of Paddy’s. A rather severe academic book about 5 women (Virginia Woolf, the poet HD, Dorothy Sayers, Jane Harrison, a Cambridge...
Oct 12, 20191 min read
721. Colson Whitehead - The Underground Railroad
Heard an extract on Radio 4. This is a shocking book about slavery in the deep south in the 19th century, but it is not a very good book....
Aug 31, 20191 min read
707. Kate Weinberg - The Truants
This was far better and I devoured it far faster. A debut novel about kids at university and their beguiling lecturer Lorna, who teaches,...
Jul 27, 20181 min read
612. Meg Wolitzer - The Interestings
A library book via P. I thought, for most of this book, which is quite a hard work read, that ‘the interestings’ (5 or 6 student-y...
Jun 24, 20181 min read
605. John Williams - Stoner
Quite a ‘quiet’ book, about the fictional life of an academic who abandons agricultural training (parents being farmers) for literature...
Jun 19, 20181 min read
602. Edith Wharton - The House Of Mirth
Not a lot of humour or mirth in this. I enjoyed The Age of Innocence (593) and thought I would try another Wharton. Proved to be (by the...
May 18, 20181 min read
593. Edith Wharton - The Age Of Innocence
I have tried (I don’t think successfully) to read this is the past, but it is brilliant. The themes are all Henry James, but the cultural...
Sep 20, 20171 min read
526. Lloyd Whitesell - The Music Of Joni Mitchell
An unread birthday or Xmas present from a few years ago, but we went to see a tribute band just before we went away. Quite an academic...
Aug 1, 20171 min read
510. Ruth Ware - The Woman in Cabin 10
I enjoyed this less than the previous 2 (505 & 508). The plot all seemed a bit clichéd, Agatha Christie-ish. Get this on Amazon
Jul 18, 20171 min read
508. Ruth Ware - The Lying Game
This is a good book but I found it slightly annoying because the plot is structurally very similar to 505 - adult woman drawn back into...
Jul 2, 20171 min read
505. Ruth Ware - In A Dark, Dark Wood
Brilliant. I found this hard to get into initially because it is very much a girl’s book, but after that initial difficulty it was...
Aug 17, 20161 min read
425. Edith Wharton - The Age Of Innocence
Another book unread (by me) since May 1977, when we bought it. I couldn’t (quite) get into it; it was good in parts, but the narrative...