I live in Hoylake, on the north-western tip of the Wirral peninsula. I used to spend an hour or more on trains each week travelling to work and if possible would read for the entire journey, which is how this blog came into being. I changed jobs a few years ago and don't travel to work by train anymore but I'm sticking with reading and blogging. Old habits die hard.
There was a time when Hubby was into Terry Prachett’s Discworld series. For anyone who doesn’t recognise the name (where have you been for the last 40 years?), Discworld is a series of comedy-fantasy books set on planet Discworld. Over the years Hubby cherry-picked a few to pass to me, which is how I came … More The Iliad by Homer
Hubby’s friend, Steve, was one of the few people I’ve met who could rightly be described as a ‘character’. He did things his own way and seemed to command attention wherever he went. Take the time Hubby and Steve went skiing. Steve arrived in jeans, a raincoat from the Army and Navy Stores, and fingerless … More Travels with Maurice: An Outrageous Adventure in Europe, 1968 by Gary Orleck
When I was growing up I lived with a ghost. I know some people will think that sounds crazy. I know some people will think I imagined it. Yet the experience was real. Our house-ghost wasn’t an apparition, it was a presence: being alone in a room, then knowing someone had entered although no-one was … More The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler
I stumbled across this strange, little book by chance on BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime. A man is writing a book about Ted Hughes. His wife dies in an accident, leaving him to raise their two small boys alone. Four or five days after her death (“the friends and family who had been hanging … More Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
Several years ago, I volunteered for an assignment in Milton Keynes. It would last two days and involve an overnight stay. At the end of day one, I checked into my hotel and headed out for a jog. I’d spotted a park on the map and figured an out and back run, including a circuit … More English Journey or the Road to Milton Keynes by Beryl Bainbridge
I’m seven years old, maybe eight. I’m in the kitchen with my mother. She’s cooking; I’m studying a box of teabags on the kitchen dresser. The teabags are made by Ceylon Tea and the picture on the box is strange and beautiful: pretty young women in brightly-coloured saris, blue, red, and pink, smiling among bright … More The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
Ten years ago I went on a mini-tour of China. In Shanghai, Beijing, and Xian the tour guide asked us not to leave the hotel in the evening – she was afraid we’d get lost. When we reached Guilan, it was a different story. There was an evening market we might like to explore, she … More Continent by Jim Crace
I first fell in love with a book when I was five. It was a Ladybird Book called Chicken Licken, a tale of a little chicken who creates panic among the other birds (Henny-Penny, Ducky-Lucky, Goosey-Loosey, Turkey-Lurkey etc.) by running around telling them the sky is falling down when an acorn falls on his head. … More The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
translated by Daisy Rockwell The older I get and the more I travel, the more I realise how many people hate the English. Not individual English people, you understand, but The English, with a capital T capital E. I can see why. TE have done some good in places (ask the Maltese, ask the Greeks … More Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree
I remember seeing the film Some Like It Hot on TV when I was seven or eight. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was sprawled on the rug in front of the fire reading a book. I don’t remember much about the film apart from Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dressed as women, and … More Mr Wilder & Me by Jonathan Coe
whatcathyread 