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Tag: Family

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

26/08/2022

The Hillsborough tragedy was the biggest sporting disaster in British history. At the start of the 1989 FA cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, police opened an exit gate into already-full ‘pens’ at the Leppings Lane end, which resulted in a fatal crush. Hubby’s brother, then 18, was at the match, though thankfully he … More Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

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The Promise by Damon Galgut

24/06/2022

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

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The Sacred and Profane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch

28/01/2022

Hubby recently confessed to an affair with a younger woman, who became pregnant. That was nine years ago and the child, a boy called Luca, is now eight. Hubby still visits the woman, Emily, and rents a flat for her, though he swears he doesn’t love her and maintains contact only because of Luca. I … More The Sacred and Profane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch

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Twopence to Cross the Mersey by Helen Forrester

24/09/2021

My father was a Barnardo’s boy. In 1926, aged seven, he was put into the Liverpool Home for Destitute Children and Orphans because his war-widow mother, Agnes, was too poor to keep him. I’d grown up knowing he was brought up in an “orphanage” but took it as read that both his parents were dead. … More Twopence to Cross the Mersey by Helen Forrester

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The Accidental by Ali Smith

21/02/2020

My Uncle Bobbie died just over a year ago. I’ve spent some time recently sorting through his old 78” records. He had a lovely singing voice in his day and for many years was a compere and singer at his local parish club.  Unsurprisingly his old records reflect the music he most liked to sing: … More The Accidental by Ali Smith

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The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es

25/10/2019

‘Without families you don’t get stories.’ At the time of writing I’m on holiday on Corfu. In normal life my brain is chock-full of jobs-to-do but on holiday I have time to think, which isn’t always a good thing.  One night (admittedly after several glasses of the local wine) I got upset about not having … More The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es

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Somewhere Towards The End by Diana Athill

19/07/2019

Biographies are like busses, you wait for one for ages then three come along at once… My Uncle Bobbie died earlier this year just under two weeks before his 96th birthday.  It seems strange to refer to the death of a nonagenarian as a shock, but it was, because he wasn’t ill. On the morning … More Somewhere Towards The End by Diana Athill

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Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

18/01/2019

My Dad was a big fan of Westerns.  I grew up watching The High Chaparral and A Man Called Horse; by the time I was five I was hooked. I named a teddy bear Blue Boy (after the character Billy Blue Cannon in The High Chaparral) and wrote a letter to Santa promising to be … More Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

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The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell

18/02/2017

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

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The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge

31/12/2016

My RE teacher relished moral dilemmas.  She’d take a Commandment, thou shalt not kill, or thou shalt not bear false witness, say, and then question us to explore their outer limits. Would you murder one person to save the lives of many? Would you lie to hide a painful truth? Faith Sunderly, the teenage heroine … More The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge

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Reviews

  • Some of the books on my reading list for 2023…
  • Quarantine by Jim Crace
  • Spies by Michael Frayn
  • The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
  • Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
  • Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
  • The Kids by Hannah Lowe
  • The Promise by Damon Galgut
  • Learning to Talk: short stories by Hilary Mantel
  • English Journey by J B Priestley
  • At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop
  • Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
  • The Sacred and Profane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch
  • Miscellanea
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker
  • The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
  • Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge
  • Twopence to Cross the Mersey by Helen Forrester
  • The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (translated by Michelle Hutchinson)
  • The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
  • Elegies by Douglas Dunn
  • The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor
  • The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather
  • The Chip-Chip Gatherers by Shiva Naipaul
  • The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel
  • Love Is Blind by William Boyd
  • Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi (translated by Marilyn Booth)
  • Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
  • The Destiny Waltz by Gerda Charles
  • The Bird of Night by Susan Hill
  • Footnotes – A Journey Round Britain in the Company of Great Writers by Peter Fiennes
  • The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
  • Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
  • The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
  • Every Man For Himself by Beryl Bainbridge
  • The Accidental by Ali Smith
  • The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor
  • 10 Best Novels of the Decade: 2010 to 2019
  • Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
  • Emily Dickinson – poems selected by Ted Hughes
  • The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es
  • Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley
  • Milkman by Anna Burns
  • Somewhere Towards The End by Diana Athill
  • The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein
  • A Life of Picasso Volume 1: 1881 – 1906 by John Richardson
  • Flights by Olga Tokarczuk (translated by Jennifer Croft)
  • Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington
  • Theory of War by Joan Brady

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