Have you ever dreamed you’re running away from something, though you’re not quite sure from what or whom? Or that you’re lost in a forest? Or where you see yourself and in the dream you look totally different, but you know it’s you? This is pretty much where the protagonist of The Seven Deaths of … More The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Each August, Hubby and I spend a long weekend at Edinburgh Fringe festival. A few years ago we saw comedian Simon Evans at Assembly George Square. His stand-up show, the Work of the Devil, began with a rant about identity politics before neatly segueing into a personal revelation: a DNA test had shown him to … More Unsettled Ground by Clare Fuller
Last summer I was in a bar in Corfu watching Liverpool beat Spurs 2-0 in the Champions League Cup Final. The previous summer I’d watched Liverpool lose the same final to Real Madrid by 3-1. In that match we were disadvantaged not only because our star striker, Mo Salah, broke his collarbone within the first … More The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor
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
When I go to a bookshop, I’m like a magpie in a field full of shiny things. My cousin is the opposite; she buys books one at a time. Last time we went to a bookshop together, of all the books that caught her eye she plumped for the longest on the grounds that it … More The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Liz Jensen is an author I admire, so when in a recent piece for creative writing journal Mslexia she urged subscribers to read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Speckled Band, I determined to do exactly that. As you might guess it‘s a Sherlock Holmes adventure, the first I’ve ever read, though I’d … More The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
whatcathyread 