It’s been a while since I published a book review on here. That’s because it’s been a while since I read a book. A whole year in fact. For many years I was a voracious reader but motherhood has really taken a bite out of my time and my ability to concentrate (hence TV series’ over movies of late too). When Mrs O Senior gave me The Testaments for Christmas I decided it was time to break the drought and put some effort into reading again.
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Attempting a new take on superheroes was never going to be an easy premise for a novel. At the moment popular culture seems bogged down with characters with extraordinary abilities… and I don’t just mean my child’s seemingly extraordinary ability to sing the Spider-Man theme tune for about 10 hours a day when the only bit of the song he knows is the word “Spider-Man”. A fresh take is exactly what V.E. Schwab is attempting with Vicious and to a large extent she is successful.
This is the third book in the Peter Grant detective series set where London’s human criminal element meets its supernatural one. I really enjoyed the first two novels in this series so picking up the next one seemed like a no brainer.
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A friend of mine recommended I Love Dick to me after I spotted her reading it on Instagram. I have to admit that I am not really sure where to start with this review or really how to describe this novel… if it is a novel because it is so different from anything I have ever read before but I am going to have a go nonetheless.
It’s no secret that I love a bit of Young Adult fiction and I have been known to jump on the bandwagon for the latest hyped up series. I suppose it’s a desire for a bit of escapism. The Bone Season falls into that category. Read more…
I was recommended this book by Mr O, who is predominantly a non-fiction reader and thought that I’d enjoy this look at life behind the Berlin wall. I was fortunate enough to travel to Berlin a few times for work in my previous role and to actually spend a weekend there in 2016 in the former GDR. I visited the wall and some of the historical sites related to the separation of both the city and the country. I was also a big fan of the film The Lives of Others so prior to reading this I had some interest in the historical context.
It probably feels like an absolute eternity since I did a book review and in fairness it has been. I have been reading the book I am about to review for three months. Before you judge me harshly, I think I need to point out that it’s over a thousand pages long and I only really get to read on the train because of small human interference and general exhaustion.
I found this book on my Goodreads to read list. I have no idea where it came from but I did see that several of my friends had either added it or rated it highly so I decided to make it my latest read. It was definitely a good choice.
I am continuing to choose books from my long reading list on Goodreads, which you can actually check out here. This Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock has been on the list since 2013 and I have no idea where it came from. I think it might also have been a potential book club selection that was rejected. Interestingly the author, Matthew Quick, also wrote The Silver Linings Playbook. Read more…
For my latest reading adventure, I decided to go for a children’s’ classic and chose The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I was in the mood for something uplifting and not too taxing and I figured this would fit the bill. Read more…
When the O Family was in South Africa recently Mr O found a book by Bill Bryon in our Air BnB called A Short History of Nearly Everything. He had finished the books he brought with him to read so he decided to give it a go. He absolutely loved it and kept giving me little snippets that he was enjoying. Read more…
When I first got my Kindle many years ago, I downloaded some classic books that had become free as they were more than 100 years out of copyright. I think I found a list of recommended books somewhere and picked off a collection that I wanted to read. I have been working through them in between various books that I have purchased. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was one of those still hanging around. Read more…
I have something like 130 books to read on my Goodreads list. I remember where some of them came from… but not all. Usually when I finish a book I go to the list and see if there’s something on the list I fancy reading. I mean otherwise the list will never get shorter, right? This time I picked Teeth by Hannah Moskovitz. I have no idea where it came from. It might have been one of the suggestions for my old book club that we never ended up reading. Read more…
With all the recently holidaying going on around here, I decided I wanted a light read that wouldn’t require too much of my very limited brain power. I saw a load of adverts for The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue so I decided to give it a whack and see if it was up to the hype. Read more…
I became interested in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle because of his most well known character, Sherlock Holmes. I was a big fan of the Guy Richie film and decided to read some of the stories to see how close his interpretation of Holmes was to the original and became hooked. (Spoiler: he’s not far off. Also Watson is my ideal literary husband). Recently I decided to see if the magic was confined just to Holmes by checking out one of Doyle’s other novels. Read more…
I first found out about In Cold Blood when watching Capote, which starred the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role. It’s a great film and focuses on author, Truman Capote’s, obsession with the the Clutter murder trial and in particular accused killer, Perry Smith. I added the book to my “to-read” list but it’s taken me three and a half years to actually read it. Read more…
I was poking around in my Amazon account the other day and discovered that I bought some books for my Kindle when Little O had just been born. I have no recollection of doing this or when I thought I was going to read these books. For some reason they never delivered to my Kindle so the whole thing seems a bit odd. Anyway, now that I have time to read on my commute, I am quite glad very new mum me somehow sort of pre-arranged me some reading material. A Wrinkle in Time is the first of these books. Read more…
A while ago I got a choice of free books after buying something on Amazon. I have no idea what since I buy all the things on Amazon. I chose The Corrections because it was the only one on offer that I had not read and I had no idea what it was about before I started reading it. Read more…
I suppose I need to mention as a disclaimer to this review that I sort of know the author… or more that I sort of know his wife, which is why I knew the book existed. That has nothing to do with this review though as it is based completely on my experience of reading the book, which I bought and paid for. Read more…
Every so often, I like to pick out a so-called classic to read, to try to broaden my literary knowledge but also to decide whether I think they’re actually worth the hype e.g. a resounding yes to Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and all the Sherlock Holmes outings… a resounding WTF to Moby Dick and flat no to Tess of the D’Ubervilles. This time I decided to go for Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov. Read more…
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