Category: Bookends

  • September 2024

    It is quite rare to read the first couple of pages of a novel and just know that you will love the book. It is a delicious feeling and it happened to me with this story. I have only read one other novel by Ann Patchett: The Dutch House. I liked it but for me […]

  • August 2024

    ‘The Signora had no business to do it, no business at all.’ Many of you will recognise this as Charlotte Bartlett’s words at the beginning of EM Forster’s ‘A Room with a View.’ Well, when we recently stayed in Florence, our room nearly had a view of the River Arno … almost. However, we had […]

  • July 2024

    Little Clarendon Street in Oxford. If you are of a certain age this address might immediately bring to mind Laura Ashley! In the 1980s I would regularly walk along St Giles, out of the main shopping centre, to visit my favourite shop. It was a time of crowded communal changing rooms where you made sure […]

  • June 2024

    In 1984 bookmakers refused to take further bets on the winner of the Booker Prize. It was a forgone conclusion. The Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard would win … but it didn’t. The winner was a slim book of 140 pages: Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. Accepting the prize, Anita Brookner said […]

  • May 2024

    There was a time, many years ago now, when I was quite an authority on children’s books. I read widely and voraciously, led reading groups to extend the stamina, experience and variety of children’s reading and mentored those who were ready to move onto adult literature. Writers that I used included Penelope Lively, John Rowe […]

  • April 2024

    So this book was a bestseller in 2009. It is back in the windows of bookshops now because of a new Netflix series, closely based on this story. Every newspaper, journal and magazine I have read of late has had excited reviewers waxing lyrical about everything David Nicholls. I understand the buzz and the enthusiasm. […]

  • March 2024

    On my hall windowsill is a group of old Pan paperbacks by Nevil Shute. There are nine of them. Many years ago I went through a phase of collecting these mid-20th century stories and became a little obsessive about finding editions of each book that had matching artwork on the front. I trailed charity shops […]

  • February 2024

    I watched Lessons in Chemistry on Apple TV. I had no idea what it was all about but I was soon absorbed in the story. The first part was outrageous in its misogyny and rampant sexism and after that it was simply tragic. However, 2 people who had read the book confidently reported that the […]

  • January 2024

    I’m not altogether keen on hardback books: very expensive, very heavy and somehow they feel very self important. They are certainly not books that I can read in the bath! The problem is that I have to wait usually at least 6 months for a new book to appear in paperback. Normally I can be […]

  • December 2023

    The Virtual Christmas Bookshop Welcome to my bookshop; a pop-up shop just open for the festivities. Please do come in. A book is surely the perfect gift. Not too big and really re-usable; again and again if required. A paperback is not too heavy if you have to post it. It is easy to make […]