Category: My Reading

  • So Late In The Day – Claire Keegan

    Whichever bookshop I am in, here or on my visit to New York City recently, I have been assaulted by huge displays of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. Not to my taste, as faithful readers may know by now. Luckily however there is always another bookshelf to browse, just around the corner. Here I found a […]

  • A House In Sicily – Daphne Phelps

    This was an interesting read, not quite an autobiography, maybe somewhere in between a memoir and a travelogue. Through familial contacts and a mixture of circumstance and serendipitous happenings, Daphne Phelps, a young psychiatric social worker becomes the custodian and then the owner of a beautiful house in Taormina, Sicily. There is an obvious lack […]

  • The Bastard of Istanbul – Elif Shafak

    Elif Shafak has a new book out: ‘There are rivers in the sky,’ and so she is absolutely everywhere. She obviously has a very good publicity agent as every paper, magazine or journal I pick up is pushing this new novel. The author has been speaking at the RA and making podcasts etc. I had […]

  • Enduring Love – Ian McEwan

    When I had read ‘Lessons’ by Ian McEwan I decided I had to read more by this acclaimed writer. ‘Enduring Love’ is a fascinating if rather disturbing read. A hot air balloon floats over the Chilterns and suddenly seems to be in trouble. Several people picnicking go to help and grab hold of ropes. There […]

  • Trelawney’s Cornwall – Petroc Trelawney

    Sometimes I like a reading break away from fiction and this book presented itself. I may have mentioned before that Petroc is my favourite Radio 3 presenter! His breakfast show is my choice of a gentle way into the day. He is of course Cornish and I was interested as to how he would approach […]

  • Is there anything you want? – Margaret Forster

    This book was on my shelves with half a dozen others by the same author. I must have read it before but I really don’t remember it. Margaret Forster, who died a few years ago was married to Hunter Davies, writer for the Times and Sunday Times and (much more importantly) biographer of The Beatles! […]

  • Thrones, Dominations – Dorothy L Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh

    A short while ago I read the four novels by Jill Paton Walsh about her Cambridge quasi detective Imogen Quy. I loved them, and looking for more by the same author I came across novels that she had written with Dorothy L Sayers. With, and then by herself in the style of, once the older […]

  • Enough – Stephen Hough

    I like a good memoir and I haven’t read one for some time. So, there I was in the London Review Bookshop in Bloomsbury and looking for what I might buy. Not sure I am really capable of going into a Bookshop and not buying something. Elif Shafak took my eye … and there is […]

  • The Last Runaway – Tracy Chevalier

    I have great admiration for Tracy Chevalier. In my opinion she is an accomplished writer. As with most people I think, the first novel of hers that I read was ‘The Girl with a Pearl Earring’. This was the backstory created from the luminous picture by Vermeer. It was a convincing historical read and I […]

  • Long Island – Colm Toibin

    This is an author I really enjoy reading. There is also a really good BBC Imagine programme about him, should you care to look it up. This is a sequel to his book ‘Brooklyn’ which won many prizes when it was published in 2009, indeed it was long listed for the Booker. In Brooklyn, Eilis […]