I read 36 books in 2021 – probably the lowest yearly amount I’ve ever read, and certainly since I started using goodreads in 2013. Although there were plenty of excellent reads this year, when I look back at 2021’s list I feel a little uninspired. Near misses and minor disappointments were padded out with self-indulgent…
The same but not the same // exploring Oxford: pubs, museums, meadows, bookshops and board game cafes
In many ways Lyra was a barbarian. What she liked best was clambering over the College roofs with Roger, the Kitchen boy who was her particular friend, to spit plum-stones on the heads of passing Scholars or hoot like owls outside a window where a tutorial was going on; or racing through the narrow streets,…
Oxford//eat: The Handle Bar
28-32 St Michael Street, Oxford, OX1 2EB I don’t write café reviews often, but when I do, there is a common theme: brunch done well. These three words could comfortably sum up the three café reviews currently on my blog: The Locker Café in Cambridge, Wild Café in Bath… and now The Handle Bar in…
Self-defence and happy endings: review of Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
4 STARS Sally Rooney, 2021 CONTAINS SPOILERS Every person you’ve ever met or seen in the street lives a life as rich and complex as your own. Chapter Two of Sally Rooney’s new novel Beautiful World, Where Are You forces us to confront this truth. We view ‘a woman’ as she goes about her day…
My 2020 in books: a reading year in review
I’ve read 52 books this year – a classic number, one for every week. It is down from 85 in 2019 and 100 in 2018, though. However, with my average book length being 353 pages (thank you Goodreads), I think I had a lot of longer reads which took a couple of weeks to get…
Not haunted enough by Dolly Alderton’s Ghosts: Review
2 STARS Dolly Alderton, 2020 CONTAINS SPOILERS ‘When will this all end? I just want someone nice to go to the cinema with.’ The above line was the most heartbreakingly depressing moment in Dolly Alderton’s first novel, Ghosts. It promised ‘whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.’ What it presented –…
Film Review: Rebecca
3 STARS Ben Wheatley, 2020 CONTAINS SPOILERS “I’m asking you to marry me, you little fool.” When Armie Hammer delivered this line in a smouldering whisper, clutching Lily James’s face tenderly in both hands against the lush backdrop of an opulent bedroom which suggested sensuality just as much as James’s tilted head and open mouth…
Untimely Endings in Ali Smith’s Summer: Review
4 STARS Ali Smith, 2020 Summer isn’t just a merry tale. Because there’s no merry tale without the darkness. It’s quite sad that this series has come to an end. The contemporary-est of contemporary novels, they have featured current events often of only a month or two before publication, mixed in with stories about…
The Testaments: The Sequel You Didn’t Know You Needed?
3 STARS Margaret Atwood, 2019 CONTAINS SPOILERS You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you. In many ways, The Testaments is the exact opposite of The Handmaid’s Tale. There, we were claustrophobically confined to one character’s limited viewpoint. Here, we move rhythmically between three different ones. There, we…
White Teeth: the Debut Author’s Hysterical Realism
3 STARS Zadie Smith, 2000 Shiva shook his head. ‘I been out with a lot of white birds, Samad. A lot. Sometimes it’s worked, sometimes it ain’t. Two lovely American girls. Fell head-over-heels for a Parisian stunner. Even spent a year with a Romanian. But never an English girl. Never works. Never.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Too…
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