I live in Hoylake, on the north-western tip of the Wirral peninsula. I spend an hour or more each weekday on trains and (ideally) spend the entire journey reading.
My friend, A, used to devour books by Maeve Binchy. I’m not really an easy reading kind of a girl, as you might have gathered from reading this blog, but I also refuse to turn into a book snob so when A insisted I read Binchy’s Evening Class, I agreed to borrow her dog-eared copy. … More Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
In March, Hubby and I went away for a week’s skiing holiday with friends, as we normally do. We went to Tignes, France, which links with Val D’Isere to form the large Espace Killy ski area. It was a good week: skiing, eating, drinking, pub quiz (we won), swimming/relaxing in a pool and spa, the … More The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Hubby and I spent a week in France last summer to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. 30 years! Where did they go? When you’ve no kids, you live in a Peter Pan-like bubble where you never seem to get any older and time doesn’t seem to pass until…bam! A significant anniversary hits and it’s hard … More Every Man For Himself by Beryl Bainbridge
My Uncle Bobbie died just over a year ago. I’ve spent some time recently sorting through his old 78” records. He had a lovely singing voice in his day and for many years was a compere and singer at his local parish club. Unsurprisingly his old records reflect the music he most liked to sing: … More The Accidental by Ali Smith
Last summer I was in a bar in Corfu watching Liverpool beat Spurs 2-0 in the Champions League Cup Final. The previous summer I’d watched Liverpool lose the same final to Real Madrid by 3-1. In that match we were disadvantaged not only because our star striker, Mo Salah, broke his collarbone within the first … More The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor
The 2010s were the first decade of my blog. Well, almost – I began whatcathyread in 2011. I’ve read a lot of great books in that time, although I certainly can’t claim to have read everything that was published! But looking back on the books I did manage to read that were published in the … More 10 Best Novels of the Decade: 2010 to 2019
At midnight when the year turned from 1989 to 1990, hubby and I were in a pub in the Scottish village of Crianlarich (“the gateway to the Highlands”). ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was sung and there might have been fireworks, although what I remember most about that New Year, our first together as man and wife, … More Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
Hoylake Community Cinema is no more. After 10-ish years and several awards it closed its doors in September, purportedly to make way for a commercial cinema that will almost certainly fail. HCC succeeded because it was like a film club with no membership subscription. It screened one film a month. The programme for the ‘season’, … More Emily Dickinson – poems selected by Ted Hughes
‘Without families you don’t get stories.’ At the time of writing I’m on holiday on Corfu. In normal life my brain is chock-full of jobs-to-do but on holiday I have time to think, which isn’t always a good thing. One night (admittedly after several glasses of the local wine) I got upset about not having … More The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es
At the time of writing, Prime Minister May is in France to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day landings. By the end of the week she will have resigned, after a relatively short premiership dominated by Brexit. At the D day ceremony a 90-something veteran tells a BBC reporter that it took so much … More Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley
