So: another year over and another about to begin. But however 2025 has treated us and whatever 2026 has in store for us, there will always be another book to read! My favourite read of 2025 was American Pastoral by Philip Roth – you can access my review here – so it’s perhaps unsurprising that … More Goodbye 2025, Hello 2026!
I’ve read some wonderful books this year. My favourites were: The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie; Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks; and (best of all) the fantastically bonkers The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. One of the great things about reading is there are always more books to read. Some of the … More Goodbye 2024, Welcome 2025!
I thought I’d give a sneaky-peak at some of the books I’ll be reading and reviewing next year. The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie. Won the Whitbread Novel prize in 1995. A birthday present from Hubby. Unsettled Ground by Clare Fuller. Won the Costa Novel prize in 2021, the 50th and final year of … More 2024 and all that!
Books on my radar for 2023 (but not necessarily in this order)… Jonathan Coe – Mr Wilder & Me I’ve never read anything by JC (mea culpa). I could break my duck with Middle England, which won the Costa Novel award in 2019, but will instead go with this quirky homage to cinema that I … More Some of the books on my reading list for 2023…
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
St Andrew’s Gardens is a Grade II listed art deco building in Liverpool city centre. Now used for student accommodation, it was built in the 1930s as a council tenement block, and because of its distinctive circular shape became known locally as the “Bullring”. In the 1980s it was still in council ownership but badly … More Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington
My project for over the Christmas holidays was to sort through my old photographs. It was fun to do but also a little sad. Girls at school, girls at Guide camp, a barbeque on the beach with the boys from the Catholic Youth Service, the fun of the fair with a church music group, an … More A Horse Walks Into A Bar by David Grossman (translated from the Hebrew by Jessica Cohen)
The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: The Merchant of Venice, Act 4 Scene 1 At the time of writing I’m not long back from Stratford-upon-Avon and a … More The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth
During World War II US troops were stationed in Liverpool at a barracks not far from where my granddad, Martin Nesbitt, lived. The story goes that one day Martin, too old to be conscripted, boarded a tram full of US soldiers. In one part of the car were white GIs and in another, keeping apart, … More The Sellout by Paul Beatty
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