I like to think that this Christmas Gift Guide is a very realistic one. While glossy magazines show us gifts in the region of £1500 +, this blog is different! Something for all price points (from £3 to a smidge over £50) there’s a gift for everyone.
Category Archives: Book of the Month
Christmas Book Gift Guide
Imagine receiving a pile of books like this on Christmas Day! I, for one, would be thrilled. This is my list of To Be Read this Christmas. Some new releases, some that have been released this year or a bit before… Continue reading Christmas Book Gift Guide
The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst and Mrs Osmond by John Banville
Patterns are interesting to observe in literature. So when Alan Hollinghurst’s latest novel ‘The Sparsholt Affair’ was set to be released in the same month – this month – as John Banville’s ‘Mrs Osmond’, I knew I had to read both books. Continue reading The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst and Mrs Osmond by John Banville
A Poem for Every Day of the Year
Happy National Poetry Day! Continue reading A Poem for Every Day of the Year
Non-Fiction September
I have particularly enjoyed reading some non-fiction this month… Continue reading Non-Fiction September
Favourite Things Of The Month
This month has kindled some new favourite things. Continue reading Favourite Things Of The Month
Summer 2017 Books To Read
Jane Austen’s House Museum
Two hundred years ago Jane Austen left her house in Chawton for Winchester for medical treatment, where she died in July 1817.
This is the house where Jane Austen lived from 1809 to 1817. Here, she revised her earlier novels Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and saw them published. She wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion and began her last and uncompleted novel, Sanditon. Continue reading Jane Austen’s House Museum
Two Stories: Virginia Woolf and Mark Haddon
‘In a way it’s easier to do a short thing, all in one flight that a novel. Novels are frightfully clumsy and overpowering of course; still if one could only get hold of them it would be superb. I daresay one ought to invent a completely new form.’ Virginia Woolf. Continue reading Two Stories: Virginia Woolf and Mark Haddon
The Purple Swamp Hen And Other Stories by Penelope Lively
‘Books are essentially a social medium’ we are told in the short story Mrs Bennet by Penelope Lively. If that is true (and I believe it is), then short stories are surely the most gregarious form of literature. Continue reading The Purple Swamp Hen And Other Stories by Penelope Lively