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.
I bet you’ll have come across one at some stage when you were growing up: the kid in the class who had no friends and was always alone. The kid who other kids avoided because they just weren’t right, somehow. The kid who even adults didn’t like, never asking why we didn’t invite them to … More The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor
Easter 2013. Hubby had entered a golf competition at his golf club, meaning he would potentially be playing golf every single day across the whole weekend: one round on Good Friday, two on Easter Saturday, one on Easter Sunday, two on Easter Monday. This was the third year running and I’ll admit, I saw my … More The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather
If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know I usually open each review with a story or an anecdote. This time I’m going to break with tradition and pitch straight in. The Chip-Chip Gatherers is set in Trinidad and centred on the Settlement, a collection of “mean huts and houses clinging despairingly to … More The Chip-Chip Gatherers by Shiva Naipaul
My mother once told me you only ever find out what someone is really like when they come into money unexpectedly. I guess mum’s point was that a sudden windfall shines a spotlight on whether a person is generous by nature or only interested in number one. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately … More The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
It would normally be pantomime season (oh yes it would) so it seems kind of fitting to review a book about a man who is often cast by history in the role of pantomime villain: Thomas Cromwell. This is the third in Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy. The first, Wolf Hall, followed Cromwell’s rise from low-born … More The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel
Before you rush to hit the “unsubscribe” button, this is very much a one-off. If you are a regular reader of What Cathy Read, I get a mention now and again as “Hubby”, and come across as basically a man of simple tastes, who is most at ease when hitting something with something else, or … More Love Is Blind by William Boyd
I was nineteen when I first came across the story of Patient Griselda, within the Clerk’s Tale in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. For those who don’t know the story, Griselda’s husband sets out to test her obedience, first by removing their two children at birth, supposedly to have them killed, then by throwing her out … More Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi (translated by Marilyn Booth)
A few summers ago, Hubby and I took in the capitals of Scandinavia and the Baltic: Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn with their medieval old towns; scenic Helsinki; compact, cultured Oslo; and wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. I’d had it in my head to go to Copenhagen ever since I was a kid growing up in the 1970’s … More Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
When I was in sixth form, studying for ‘A’ levels, my physics class had two teachers. Let’s call them Mrs M and Miss C. Neither seemed to know how to teach and they each had a technique for dealing with questions from the class. Mrs M, who never moved off her lab-stool, not even when … More The Destiny Waltz by Gerda Charles
When I was a teenager studying for my ‘A’-levels, one of the English Literature set-texts was Waiting for Godot, and I struggled to understand it; particularly the relationship between Pozzo and Lucky. In case you’re not familiar with Beckett’s play, when they first appear Lucky has a rope around his neck, which Pozzo uses to … More The Bird of Night by Susan Hill
