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
I was only three or four, I think, when I learned adults could not necessarily be relied upon to keep their promises. At that time my mother’s youngest sister and her husband were the only members of the family to own a car. They visited every Sunday and I’d perch on the window ledge, waiting … More The Promise by Damon Galgut
My father was an alcoholic, albeit a functioning one. He would come home from work on a Friday and drink a bottle of whisky. He’d drink another two bottles on Saturday and a half-bottle on Sunday. He generally wouldn’t go to bed no matter how much my mother pleaded or cajoled, preferring to stay up … More Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
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
My friend, A, used to devour books by Maeve Binchy. I’m not really an easy reading kind of a girl, as you might have gathered from reading this blog, but I also refuse to turn into a book snob so when A insisted I read Binchy’s Evening Class, I agreed to borrow her dog-eared copy. … More Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
In March, Hubby and I went away for a week’s skiing holiday with friends, as we normally do. We went to Tignes, France, which links with Val D’Isere to form the large Espace Killy ski area. It was a good week: skiing, eating, drinking, pub quiz (we won), swimming/relaxing in a pool and spa, the … More The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
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
From age two up to my early teens we lived round the corner from Mr and Mrs J and their three lads, a family who were notorious in the area. Mrs J did not dress like the other mums, whose style choices tended towards vaguely shapeless dresses, comfy shoes and headscarves – this was the … More Milkman by Anna Burns
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)
I once aspired to be a novelist, or thought I did. With hindsight it was obvious I lacked commitment to the cause when instead of sitting my bum on a seat and picking up a pen, or my computer keyboard, or whatever, I decided to embark on a two-year MA in Creative Writing to give … More Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
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