Category: My Reading

I have relaxed into these delightful stories over the last couple of weeks. They are numbers 8 and 9 in the series of ‘44 Scotland Street’ and I am way behind numerically. I have commented before about the incredible speed with which this author produces books, as does his Edinburgh neighbour Ian Rankin. Impossible to […]

There has of course long been an immigration route from China over the Pacific to the West coast of America. In the 19th century people were attracted by the Gold Rush and then in a huge area that was asset rich and labour poor, Chinese immigrants were vital in building the miles and miles of […]

I have known Lionel Shriver for years as a journalist writing in a variety of journals, magazines and newspapers. Lionel is female and was born Margaret Ann. At age 15 and already a fledgling writer she changed her name as she felt this would bring her more respect. I find this a little dispiriting as […]

There are modern Irish writers that I greatly admire, particularly Colm Toibin and Claire Keegan, but oh my goodness the melancholy that is involved. I realise that the last 150 years of Irish history is extremely fertile land to be harvested by any writer and the enormous power and influence of the Roman Catholic Church […]

I picked up this book out of sheer curiosity. There are masses of these paperbacks and they are everywhere, from Daunts and Waterstones to Sainsburys. They nearly fill the best seller lists that appear every week in the Sunday Times. Do note these are the bestseller lists, not necessarily lists of the best books! I […]

Well, this slim book is well named. For the vast majority of us it is indeed a conundrum to feel so very strongly that you were born into the wrong body that you are prepared to undergo lengthy, risky and painful surgery to become a member of the opposite sex. Jan Morris was born James […]

I haven’t read any Rachel Joyce for a while. A few years ago I did enjoy The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (and the subsequent film) followed by Maureen Fry and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy. Quite a moving trilogy. In Homemade God we are faraway from Harold’s genteel suburbia, instead transported to […]

I have had a couple of months where I have been deeply immersed in detective fiction of one sort or another: Ian Rankin, Mick Herron, Robert Galbraith, just for starters. I needed an antidote … and then it was Valentines Day. My gift was a debut novel by Lucy Steeds; The Artist. A perfect present […]

How many pages can you read whilst a saucepan of peas cooks do you think? As it turns out, quite a few. I know as I have done it. Usually my current book stays beside my bed, except during lockdown times when there was a downstairs book and an upstairs book. However, I lived (I […]

Lots of writers, artists and composers are known by the general public for one work, think of Widor and his Toccata, Dukas and the Sorcerors Apprentice, Ravel and Bolero, Munch for his ghastly picture ‘The Scream,’ JD Salinger with ‘Catcher in the Rye’ and then there is Harper Lee. Harper Lee (1926-2016) is famous, hugely […]