5 STARS Eleanor Catton, 2023 This is the sort of novel that one finishes and then immediately Googles to see what everyone else thought about the shocking ending. Imagine my disappointment to find that the vast majority of reviews in the major newspapers were nothing more than overly detailed summaries of the book’s premise, with…
7 books of 266 pages or less that will chill you to the bone
Recently, a new friend asked me what type of book I like. Any reader who flatters themselves with the word ‘eclectic’ will know that this is a question that can strike fear into the heart. In the end, though, I came up with an answer of sorts: my favourite books broadly fall into three categories….
Unpacking the clutter and digging for meaning in Homer and Langley – a review
5 STARS E. L. Doctorow, 2009 It was as if the times blew through our house like a wind, and these were the things deposited here by the winds of war. So along with everything else, all these helmets, boots, etc. ended up now where they had been deposited, artifacts of some enthusiasms of the…
2021: the year that books weren’t everything (reading year review)
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…
BEST BELIEVE 