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
Anyone remember Frankie Goes to Hollywood? Their first single, Relax, banned by the BBC, went on to make number one in the UK singles charts – nothing like a bit of controversy to stir up public interest! Their second single also topped the charts, as did their third. But it’s the fourth single, Welcome to … More Coleridge: Early Visions by Richard Holmes
Once bitten, twice shy? If you’ve read my earlier review of O’Farrell’s Instructions on a Heat Wave you’ll know it wasn’t for me. Still I’m all for second chances, and having been told by a member of my book group that The Hand That First Held Mine was better – it won the 2010 Costa … More The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell
“A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else.” Dorrigo Evans, age 77, is a surgeon, a war hero; a celebrity of sorts, made famous by a television documentary about his time as a POW in a Japanese camp on the Burma Death Railway, using his medical skills to save what … More The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
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