Oriel Malet, My Bird Sings

Oriel Malet's name has been wafting past my attention now for years, probably decades, and I've never paid much attention to her before now, which is a bit shocking. She was an accomplished novelist, Welsh, from a titled family, and her second novel, My Bird Sings, won the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize in 1946, and … Continue reading Oriel Malet, My Bird Sings →

Liz Williams, Comet Weather

Comet Weather scooped me up and ran away with me. I was up two nights in a row reading it until I was too tired, or I'd reached the end. It's a meaty read, not a slithering skinny thing, but a proper novel, filled with delight and tension and fascinating things. I thoroughly enjoyed it, … Continue reading Liz Williams, Comet Weather →

Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe

These two books about European natural processes are curiously connected, though I had no suspicion of this when I bought them. I was obviously in the mood for a sustained period of browsing on ancient species ecology and the prospects for reversing the mass extinctions caused by people. Looking for hope in the face of … Continue reading Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe →

Avengers: Endgame.

HERE BE SPOILERS. Avengers: Endgame is not a film you can talk about in detail without spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, so please don't read on if you get upset by spoilers. I MEAN IT. I don't yet know if I liked the whole film or not. I was very bored in … Continue reading Avengers: Endgame. →

Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping

Odd title, that. Who lies sleeping, exactly? It's the latest Peter Grant / Rivers of London novel, and I gobbled it up over three evenings. But though I enjoyed it, and it had (at the beginning) the potential to be one of the really rock-solid, hard-hitting novels in the series, like Broken Homes, for instance, … Continue reading Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping →

Becky Chambers space happiness

I bought the second Becky Chambers novel first - A Closed and Common Orbit - and that was a mistake, because the first page was so fascinating, yet so obviously needing the back story before I could continue, that I had to find the first novel - The Long Way to A Small Angry Planet … Continue reading Becky Chambers space happiness →

The Book of Beauty

Many years ago I bought a curiosity in a book sale: The Book of Beauty, published in 1961 by the newspaper magnate George Newnes, and edited by Eileen Allen. It’s still available on rare book sites but I’ve never seen it anywhere else, and it has fascinated me. The photographs are particularly arresting, the kind of … Continue reading The Book of Beauty →

Three small duds

The latest in a series of unexpectedly popular posts in which I complain about books I haven’t enjoyed, and why. Links to earlier editions are at the end. Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger I’ve had a copy of Lively's Booker-winning Moon Tiger for ages, and had to steel myself to read it, with some reluctance. I don’t usually … Continue reading Three small duds →

Reading some Ursula Le Guin

Ursula Le Guin has died, and I’m currently living in a different country to all my copies of her books. So I had recourse to my reading diaries to find out what I’d read of her work in the past ten years. Lavinia (2008) This is the only one of Le Guin’s historical fantasy … Continue reading Reading some Ursula Le Guin →

Re-reading Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising

About 18 months ago I wrote about Susan Cooper's five-novel sequence called The Dark Is Rising. If published today they would be classified as children's / YA fantasy fiction. In the 1960s and 1970s when the five individual novels first came out - my editions are the slim 1980s Puffins with tight leading and a … Continue reading Re-reading Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising →