For about twenty years now, my goal has been to read a book a week. It is not such a difficult thing to do, but something I seem to be incapable of achieving. I usually manage to read forty-eight books, give or take a couple, each year. In 2017 I reached fifty books but this … Continue reading 2018 – A Year of Reading
Reading
Book Review – Graveyard Clay (Cré na Cille) by Máirtín Ó Cadhain
Graveyard Clay (Cré na Cille) by Máirtín Ó Cadhain is set in a graveyard in the west of Ireland in the early 1940s and is a continuing dialogue between those buried there. These are not spirits waiting to be translated elsewhere but rather the coffin-bound corpses of the dead. They have brought with them into … Continue reading Book Review – Graveyard Clay (Cré na Cille) by Máirtín Ó Cadhain
I Spy – Book Challenge
I saw this book challenge on the There's Something About KM blog and thought I would give it a go as it looked like fun. If you want to try it yourself, these are the rules: - Find a book on your bookshelves that contains (either on the cover or in the title) an example … Continue reading I Spy – Book Challenge
Reviews of Forsaking All Other
Recent reviews of Forsaking All Other. Mary Anne Yarde 'I think Meyrick has set a new standard of excellence. Forsaking All Other is certainly the best historical romance book I have read in this era. It is, without a doubt, a plot-driven page-turner of a book. ' L S Young 'A believable glimpse into the … Continue reading Reviews of Forsaking All Other
One Minute Book Review – Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
Into the Water opens with a disturbing scene – a young woman is bound by two or more men and drowned in icy water. There is no sense given of when this happened or who she is other than her name, Libby. So, from the very beginning there is an undercurrent of danger. The novel … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
My Reading – July 2017
A Writing Life: Helen Garner and her Work by Bernadette Brennan Days Without End: A Novel by Sebastian Barry New Boy : Othello Retold by Tracy Chevalier The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
One Minute Book Review – The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
The Spinning Heart is set in a small town in Ireland during the immediate aftermath of the Irish economic recession. The novel comprises twenty-one chapters, each a monologue by a different character, each capable of standing alone. The first chapter centres on Bobby Mahon whose story is revealed in bits and pieces through every other … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
And Then Mine Enemy by Alison Stuart
This is the latest swashbuckling 17th century historical romance from the pen of Alison Stuart - the first book in a two book series (FEATHERS IN THE WIND) spanning the years of the English Civil War from 1642- 1645. AND THEN MINE ENEMY A family ripped apart in a country divided by war . . … Continue reading And Then Mine Enemy by Alison Stuart
One Minute Book Review – Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
This is the book which, in my opinion, should have won the Man Booker Prize in 2016. The story begins in Canada in 1991 with the daughters of two musicians, Marie raised in Canada and Ai-Ming who has arrived from China in the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The story weaves back … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
One Minute Book Review – All That Man Is by David Szalay
Another from the Man Booker shortlist 2016. Each of the nine chapters in this book, which is essentially a collection of short stories, deals with a man at a different stage in his life. It begins with a 17 year student and ends with a 73 year old retired civil servant. The men are are … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – All That Man Is by David Szalay
