During the COVID lockdown, with all swimming pools shut like many others I took to the sea. I didn’t have to go far: only a few miles along the coast from my home there is a lovely, sheltered bay. Immersion was gloriously cold and exhilarating, and I loved it…but having a healthy respect for tides, … More Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey through Britain by Roger Deakin
“False information can be just as useful, influential, as telling, transforming or as damaging as true information…how could you tell what was genuine and what was the product of a clever, devious and determined mind?” Barely a day goes by, it seems, without talk of fake news and disinformation, and services such BBC Verify exist … More Restless by William Boyd
About five years ago while sorting through a stack of old, official paperwork, I found a piece of paper on which my dad had written his mother’s maiden name: Agnes Hughes. That doesn’t sound so strange, until you realise that Dad was an orphan. He’d been raised in various Barnardo’s homes from the age of … More Regarding Agnes….I did it!
Liverpudlians of a certain age will remember Blacker’s department store. Spread over six floors on the corner of Elliot Street and Great Charlotte Street, it was Liverpool’s answer to New York’s Macy’s. As a child, I adored the place. There was ‘Blackie’ the rocking horse that you could ride while the mums shopped – it … More The Dressmaker by Beryl Bainbridge
Last Christmas my big sis’ bought me a lovely hardback called What Writers Read: 35 Writers on their Favourite Book. Virginia Woolf’s Orlando was chosen Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak (the most widely read female author in Turkey, I’m told). I’d read Woolf before. With an English degree it’d be remarkable if I hadn’t, given her … More Orlando by Virginia Woolf
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!
“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” Age 6, I … More The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder
In September, Hubby and I spent a fortnight back-packing in Europe to celebrate my early retirement. Our whistle-stop tour took in Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, Saltzberg, Munich, Frankfurt and Cologne and provided many memorable moments, some planned (Oktoberfest – or Blackpool on acid as I now call it) and some unplanned (floods in Central Europe). And … More Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated by Michael Hofmann)
A few years ago, finding a scrap of paper on which my father had written his mother’s maiden name, I resolved to find out what had happened to my father’s parents. Evenings would now be spent on genealogy sites searching online records. I requested copies of birth, marriage and death certificates from the GRO, military … More Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
If you mainlined the Paris Olympics, as I did, you would have seen the controversy around two women boxers, Imane Khalif from Algeria and Lin Yu-ting from Taiwan. Both had been banned from competing in the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA) but were cleared to compete in the 2024 … More Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
whatcathyread 