I'm sorry to announce that I have my first true Booker-thon failure to report and this one's up there amongst the bookie's favourites.If there's time it may end up in my one more chance saloon, but doubtful.
I have presevered to p80 with The Ruby in Her Navel (on the Captain Correlli principle) and am starting to feel this book has no future for me.I'm surprised because I have read and enjoyed plenty of Barry Unsworth in the past.If someone writes to tell me it takes a turn for the better on p81 then woe is me.
I have struggled to latch onto the writing style and something is keeping me at arm's length from the actual text. I keep reading a page and then having to read it again because not a word has sunk in.Not something I ever have a problem with if a book engages me from the off, or even if it is slow to start.
Set in twelfth century Sicily think saracens, crusades, holy wars, internecine strife, monasteries usually enough there to latch onto but I have truly floundered with this one.I also wanted to succeed because at its heart are the beginnings of religious wars and hatred and I can see why that earns it a place on the longlist.
Then I start to feel miserable with no great book on the go but life's short so reluctantly time to throw in the towel.
I certainly hope others succeed where I have failed.
Book Thoughts 2013
- BAGNOLD Enid ~ National Velvet
- BEACHAM Peter & RAVILIOUS James ~ Down the Deep Lanes
- BOYT Susie ~ The Small Hours
- CHEVALIER Tracy ~ The Last Runaway
- CROSSING William ~ Crossing's Guide to Dartmoor
- DEAKIN Roger ~ Wildwood
- ELDER Josephine ~ Sister Anne Resigns
- ELIOT George ~ Middlemarch
- HARUF Kent ~ Plainsong
- HUGHES Gerald ~ Ted and I: A Brother's Memoir
- LYON Annabel ~ The Sweet Girl
- MACFARLANE Robert ~ The Wild Places
- MADDOCKS Fiona ~ Hildegard von Bingen
- MANTEL Hilary ~ Every Day is Mother's Day
- MCGREGOR Jon ~ This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You
- NEMIROVSKY Irène ~ The Misunderstanding
- Persephone Book of Short Stories
- RAPPAPORT Helen ~ No Place For Ladies (Redux)
- SHUKMAN Henry ~ Archangel
- VOWLER Tom ~ What Lies Within
- WHARTON Edith ~ The House of Mirth
- WILSON A.N. ~ The Potter's Hand
- YORKE Malcolm ~ Edward Bawden and His Circle
- ZOLA Emile ~ The Fortunes of the Rougons
Book Thoughts 2012
- ACKROYD Peter ~ London Under
- ALDRIDGE Kitty ~ A Trick I Learned From Dead Men
- ALEXANDER Caroline ~ Mrs Chippy's Last Expedition 1914-1915
- AUSTEN Jane ~ Emma (intro)
- BAILEY Paul ~ At the Jerusalem (redux)
- BALDING Clare ~ My Animals and Other Family
- BARRY Kevin ~ Beer Trip to Llandudno
- BAWDEN E. & RAVILIOUS E. ~ Design
- BORODALE Jane ~ The Knot
- BORODALE Sean ~ Bee Journal
- BOWEN Elizabeth ~ The House in Paris
- BROWNING Robert (200)
- BYATT A.S. ~ Possession
- BYATT A.S. ~ Still Life
- BYATT A.S. ~ The Virgin in the Garden
- CARTER Angela ~ The Magic Toyshop
- CARTER Angela ~ Wise Children
- CHEVALIER Tracy ~ Girl With a Pearl Earring
- CLAPP Susannah ~ A Card From Angela Carter
- CLARK Peter ~ Dickens's London
- DARLINGTON Miriam ~ Otter Country
- DAVIES Kate ~ Colours of Shetland
- DE KAT Otto ~ Julia
- DU MAURIER Daphne ~ Vanishing Cornwall
- DUFFY Carol Ann ~ Wenceslas - A Christmas Poem
- EAVES Will ~ This is Paradise
- ECO Umberto & CARRIERE Jean-Claude ~ This is not the end of the book;
- FASSETT Kaffe ~ Dreaming in Colour: An Autobiography
- FITZGERALD Penelope ~ Human Voices
- FRENCH Dawn ~ Oh Dear Silvia
- GARDAM Jane ~ The Man in the Wooden Hat
- GMEYNER Anna ~ Manja
- GOLDING William ~ Lord of the Flies
- GOOLEY Tristan ~ The Natural Navigator (Trees)
- HARDING Paul ~ Tinkers
- HARRIS Alexandra ~ Virginia Woolf
- HART Josephine ~ Damage
- HART Josephine ~ Sin
- HENSHER Philip ~ The Missing Ink - The Lost Art of Handwriting (and Why it Still Matters)
- HERMANN Judith ~ Alice
- HODGSON Vere ~ Few Eggs and No Oranges - Wartime Diaries 1940 - 1945
- JAMIE Kathleen ~ Findings
- JAMIE Kathleen ~ Sightlines ...The Hvalsalen
- JOHNSON Alex ~ Bookshelf
- LARSON J. Edward ~ An Empire of Ice
- LEE Celia (Ed) ~ Women in War - From Home Front To Front Line
- LEWIN Angie ~ Plants and Places
- LONG James ~ Ferney redux
- MACFARLANE Robert ~ The Old Ways - A Journey on Foot (Part One)
- MACFARLANE Robert ~ The Old Ways - A Journey on Foot (Part Two)
- MANTEL Hilary ~ Bring Up the Bodies
- MARKOVITS Anouk ~ I am Forbidden
- MARS - JONES Adam ~ ¶ Pilcrow
- MARTIN Mary & SPIERS Virginia ~ Silver River: An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - Tamar Valley Diaries
- MEAD Margaret ~ Coming of Age in Samoa
- MURGIA Michela ~ Accabadora
- PARK David ~ The Light of Amsterdam
- PRICE Angharad ~ The Life of Rebecca Jones
- RAVILIOUS Eric
- REILLY Catherine (Ed) ~ Scars Upon My Heart
- ROBERTS Michèle ~ Daughters of the House
- ROE Nicholas ~ John Keats
- ROTHSCHILD Hannah ~ The Baroness - The search for Nica, the rebellious Rothschild
- ROWLING J.K. ~ The Casual Vacancy
- RUSSELL James ~ Ravilious in Pictures - A Country Life
- SELZNICK Brian ~ The Invention of Hugo Cabret
- SMITH Ali ~ There but for the
- SUMMERSCALE Kate ~ Mrs Robinson's Disgrace
- TALBOT Mary & TALBOT Bryan ~ Dotter of Her Father's Eyes
- TAYLOR Elizabeth ~ A Game of Hide and Seek
- TAYLOR Elizabeth ~ Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont
- TAYLOR Elizabeth ~ The Devastating Boys
- TAYLOR Kressman ~ Address Unknown (redux)
- WATSON Larry ~ White Crosses
- WEST Chris ~ First Class - A History of Britain in 36 Postage Stamps
- WHARTON Edith ~ Ethan Frome
- WHARTON Edith ~ Fighting France
- WHARTON Edith ~ The Age of Innocence
- WILLIAMS Merryn ~ Effie : A Victorian Scandal, From Ruskin's Wife to Millais's Muse
- WRIGHT John ~ Hedgerows
- ZOLA Emile ~ The Ladies Paradise Redux
Book Thoughts 2011
- ADICHIE Chimamanda Ngozi ~ Half of a Yellow Sun
- BADAUDE ~ London Walks!
- BARKHAM Patrick ~ The Butterfly Isles - A Summer in Search of Our Emperors and Admirals
- BARNES Julian ~ The Sense of an Ending
- BARNES Simon ~ Bird Watching With Your Eyes Closed
- BARRY Sebastian ~ On Canaan's Side
- BATES H.E. ~ Through the Woods
- BEARD Richard ~ Lazarus is Dead
- BERRY Helen ~ The Castrato and His Wife (first)
- BERRY Helen ~ The Castrato and His Wife (final)
- BLACKBURN Julia ~ Thin Paths - Journeys in and Around a Mountain Village
- BLACKBURN Julia ~ Thin Paths - Journeys in and Around a Mountain Village
- BORODALE Sean ~ Pages From a Bee Journal
- BRISCOE Joanna ~ You
- CAMILLERI Andrea ~ The Shape of Water
- CAPLE John ~ The Light, The Dusk, The Dark (exhibition)
- CLOAKE Felicity ~ Perfect Christmas Day - 15 Essential Recipes
- DARKE Jane ~ Held By the Sea
- de WAAL Edmund ~ The Hare With Amber Eyes
- DESIGN MUSEUM ~ Fifty Bags That Changed the World
- DESIGN MUSEUM ~ Fifty Hats That Changed the World
- DICKSON WRIGHT Clarissa ~ A History of English Food
- DOCX Edward ~ The Devil's Garden
- DU MAURIER Daphne ~ The Doll - Short Stories
- DUFFY Carol Ann ~ The Bees
- DUFFY Carol Ann ~ The Bees {2}
- DUFFY Carol Ann ~ The Christmas Truce
- DUFFY Carol Ann ~ The World's Wife
- FITZGERALD Penelope ~ The Bookshop
- FORD Jamie ~ Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
- FRAME Janet ~ Mona Minim and the Smell of the Sun
- FREUD Esther ~ Lucky Break
- GOBLE Fiona ~ Knit Your Own Royal Wedding
- GOODWIN Daisy ~ My Last Duchess
- GRANT Linda ~ We Had It So Good
- HAMPTON Janie ~ How the Girl Guides Won the War
- HARRIS Jane ~ Gillespie and I
- HARRIS Jane ~ Gillespie and I
- HARRIS Robert ~ The Fear Index
- HART Josephine ~ The Truth About Love
- HENDERSON C. & TOVEY H. ~ Searching for Grace
- HILL Susan ~ The Shadows in the Street
- HOLLIS Matthew ~ Now All Roads Lead to France
- HUSTVEDT Siri ~ The Summer Without Men
- IBBOTSON Eva ~ One Dog and His Boy
- JACOBS Alan ~ The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction
- KEEGAN Claire ~ Foster
- KENNEDY Richard ~ A Boy at the Hogarth Press
- KITAMURA Katie ~ The Longshot
- KRAUSS Nicole ~ Great House (Orange shortlist 2011)
- LARKIN Philip ~ A Girl in Winter
- LARKIN Philip ~ Letters to Monica
- LIVELY Penelope ~ How It All Began
- MATAR Hisham ~ Anatomy of a Disappearance
- MAYNE Michael ~ The Enduring Melody
- MCCLAIN Paula ~ The Paris Wife
- MCINTYRE Ben ~ Agent Zigzag
- MILLER A.D. ~ Snowdrops
- MOORE Susanna ~ My Old Sweetheart
- MURAKAMI Haruki ~ 1Q84
- NESS Patrick ~ A Monster Calls
- NORTON Sally ~ 101 Things to Do Before You Are Five
- NORWICH John Julius ~ A History of England in 100 Places
- O'CROHAN Tomas ~ Island Cross -Talk
- O'FARRELL Maggie ~ After You'd Gone
- ONDAATJE Michael ~ The Cat's Table
- PARR Susie ~ The Story of Swimming
- PATERSON Don ~ Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets - A New Commentary
- PATON Alan ~ Cry, the Beloved Country: A Story of Comfort in Desolation
- PAVER Michelle ~ Dark Matter - A Ghost Story
- PITCHER Annabel ~ My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece
- PRICE Leah (Ed) ~ Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books
- QUINN Anthony ~ Half of the Human Race
- RAPPAPORT Helen ~ Magnificent Obsession - Victoria and Albert and the Death That Changed the Monarchy
- RATTIGAN Terence ~ Flare Path (Theatre)
- REID Christopher ~ A Scattering
- ROBERTS Andrew (Ed) ~ Letters to Vicky (Folio Society)
- ROTH Philip ~ Nemesis
- ROUD Steve ~ The Lore of the Playground
- SLOVO Gillian ~ Black Orchids
- SOUHAMI Diana ~ Edith Cavell
- SPELLER Elizabeth ~ The Return of Captain John Emmett
- SPELLER Elizabeth ~The Sunlight on the Garden - A Memoir of Love, War and Madness
- ST AUBYN Edward ~ At Last
- TAYLOR Elizabeth ~ The Soul of Kindness
- THOMPSON Flora ~ Lark Rise to Candleford
- TOEWS Miriam ~ Irma Voth
- TOLSTOY Leo ~ War and Peace
- TOMALIN Claire ~ Charles Dickens - A Life
- TOMALIN Claire ~ Charles Dickens - A Life
- TOWNSEND WARNER Sylvia ~ Mr. Fortune's Maggot
- VANN David ~ Caribou Island
- WALSH Helen ~ Go To Sleep
- WASTVEDT Patricia ~ The German Boy
- Why Willows Weep - Contemporary Tales from the Woods
- WIESEMAN Marjorie E ~ Vermeer's Women - Secrets and Silence
- WILSON Kevin ~ The Family Fang
- WINCHESTER Simon ~ The Alice Behind Wonderland
- WINTER Kathleen ~ Annabel (Orange shortlist 2011)
- WOODWARD Gerard ~ Nourishment
Book Thoughts 2010
- ALEXIE Robert Arthur ~ Porcupines and China Dolls
- ANDREWS Elizabeth ~ A Woman's Work is Never Done
- AUSTER Paul ~ Invisible
- BAGGOTT Jean ~ The Girl on the Wall - One Life's Rich Tapestry
- BARBELLION W.N.P. ~ Journal of a Disappointed Man
- BEAUMAN Ned ~ Boxer Beetle
- BELL Adrian ~ Corduroy
- BENNETT Alan ~ Enjoy (on stage)
- BUCKLEY Jonathan ~ Contact
- CLAUDEL Philippe ~ Brodeck's Report (NTTVBG)
- COE Jonathan ~ The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim
- COOPER Lettice ~ The New House
- CURTIS Anthony ~ Virginia Woolf
- CUSK Rachel ~ The Bradshaw Variations
- DEE Jonathan ~ The Privileges
- DOUGHTY Louise ~ Whatever You Love
- DUFFY Stella ~ Theodora
- FARNDALE Nigel ~ The Blasphemer
- FERGUSON Ruby ~ Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary
- FRAME Janet ~ Living In the Maniototo
- GALLIE Menna ~ The Small Mine
- GARFIELD Simon ~ Just My Type
- GILLESPIE Grant ~ The Cuckoo Boy
- GRAHAM Eleanor ~ The Children Who Lived in a Barn
- GROSSMAN Edith ~ Why Translation Matters
- GROVE Valerie ~ So Much to Tell
- GUTCHEON Beth ~ Still Missing
- HALL M.R. ~ The Coroner
- HARRIS Alexandra ~ Romantic Moderns
- HILL Susan ~ The Woman in Black @ The Theatre Royal
- HUDSON W.H. ~ A Shepherd's Life
- HUNT Rebecca ~ Mr Chartwell
- ISHIGURO Kazuo ~ A Pale View of Hills
- JACKSON Mick ~ The Widow's Tale
- JOHNSTON Jennifer ~ The Illusionist
- JOSS Morag ~ The Night Following
- JOYCE James ~ Ulysses
- KENNEDY AL ~ What Becomes
- KESSNER Thomas ~ The Flight of the Century: Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of American Aviation
- LARSSON Stieg ~ The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
- LELIC Simon ~ Rupture
- LESSER Wendy ~ Nothing Remains the Same - Rereading and Remembering
- LEVY Amy ~ Reuben Sachs
- LEVY Andrea ~ The Long Song (Booker L/L)
- LOCKLEY R.M. ~ Letters From Skokholm
- MANGUEL Alberto ~ A Reader on Reading
- MANSFIELD Katherine ~ The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks.
- MASS OBSERVATION ~ First Year's Work 1937-1938
- MAXWELL William ~ So Long, See You Tomorrow
- MAXWELL William ~ They Came Like Swallows
- MAXWELL William ~ Time Will Darken It
- MCCANN Colum ~ Let the Great World Spin
- MCGREGOR Jon ~ Even the Dogs
- MOORE Charlotte ~ Hancox
- MOORE Lisa ~ February
- MORPURGO Michael ~ War Horse @ the New London Theatre
- NEMIROVSKY Irene ~ Jezebel
- O'FARRELL Maggie ~ The Hand That First Held Mine
- OGAWA Yoko ~ The Housekeeper and The Professor
- OLMI Veronique ~ Beside the Sea
- OSWALD Alice & GREENWOOD Jessica ~ Weeds and Wild Flowers
- OSWALD Alice ~ Dart :: Part 2
- OSWALD Alice ~ Dart :: Part One
- PAVEL Ota ~ How I Came to Know Fish
- PETTERSON Per ~ I Curse the River of Time
- PICARDIE Justine ~ Coco Chanel - The Legend and the Life
- PRICHARD Sue (ed) ~ Quilts 1700 - 2010 Hidden Histories, Untold Stories
- RAPPAPORT Helen ~ Beautiful For Ever
- ROBINSON David ~ In Cold Ink - On the Writer's Tracks
- ROBINSON Marilynne ~ Home
- ROTHMAN Claire Holden ~ The Heart Specialist
- SANSOM Polly ~ Perfect Lives
- SHAW Ali ~ The Girl with Glass Feet (NTTVBG)
- SHIELDS Carol ~ The Stone Diaries
- SIMMONDS Posy ~ Tamara Drewe
- SKLOOT Rebecca ~ The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
- SOLOMONS Natasha ~ Mr Rosenblum's List
- SPARK Muriel ~ Memento Mori
- SPARK Muriel ~ The Abbess of Crewe
- SPARK Muriel ~ The Ballad of Peckham Rye
- SPARK Muriel ~ The Driver's Seat
- STEGNER Wallace ~ Crossing to Safety
- STICKLAND Eugene ~ Queen Lear : A play
- SWAN Mary ~ The Boys in the Trees (NTTVBG)
- THOMAS Helen ~ Under Storm's Wing
- TREMAIN Rose ~ Trespass
- WATNEY Simon ~ Bloomsbury in Sussex
- WATTS Anne ~ Always the Children
- WATTS Marjorie Ann ~ Are they funny, are they dead?
- WESTON Gabriel ~ Direct Red
- WILLIAMS John ~ Stoner
- WONG Alison ~ As the Earth Turns Silver
- WOOLF Virginia ~ Flush , a biography
- WYLD Evie ~ After the Fire a Still Small Voice
Book thoughts 2009
- ADELAIDE Debra : The Household Guide to Dying (Orange L/L)
- AIKEN Joan : The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
- ALLPORT Alan : Demobbed
- ALVTEGEN Karin : Shadow
- ATWOOD Margaret : The Robber Bride
- ATWOOD Margaret : The Year of the Flood
- BADOE Yaba : True Murder a novel
- BAINES Elizabeth : Balancing on the Edge of the World (dgr asks...)
- BARBER Lynn : An Education
- BAUM Louis : I Want to See the Moon.
- BEAUMAN Nicola : The Other Elizabeth Taylor
- BENN Melissa : One of Us
- BERNSTEIN Hilda : The World That Was Ours
- BOLING Dave : Guernica
- BOLLMANN Stefan : Women Who Read Are Dangerous
- BOWLT John E. : Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia's Silver Age
- BOYDEN Joseph : From Mushkegowuk to New Orleans - A Mixed Blood Highway
- BRADLEY Alan : The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
- BULGAKOV Mikhail : White Guard
- BYATT A.S. : The Children's Book (Booker S/L 09)
- CAPLE John : The Nightingale's Song
- CATHER Willa : My Mortal Enemy
- CATHER Willa : My Ántonia
- CATHER Willa : The Professor's House
- COETZEE J.M. : Summertime (Booker S/L 09)
- COLLINS Norman : London Belongs to Me
- COOPER Duff : Operation Heartbreak
- CRAIG Amanda : Hearts and Minds
- CRAIG Amanda : Hearts and Minds (dgr asks...)
- DAWSON Jill : The Great Lover
- DAY LEWIS C : The Otterbury Incident
- DUFFY Carol Ann : Mrs Scrooge
- DUFFY Stella : State of Happiness
- DUFFY Stella : The Room of Lost Things
- DUFFY Stella : The Room of Lost Things (dgr asks...)
- EKMAN Kerstin : The Dog
- EVANS Lissa : Their Finest Hour and a Half (Orange L/L)
- FELDMAN Ellen : Scottsboro (Orange L/L - S/L)
- FIENNES William : The Music Room
- FIENNES William : The Snow Geese
- FIORATO Marina : The Glassblower of Murano
- FORMAN Gayle : If I Stay
- FOULDS Adam : The Quickening Maze (Booker S/L 09)
- GARDNER Sally : The Red Necklace
- GARNER Helen - The Spare Room (dgr asks...)
- GIBBONS Stella : Cold Comfort Farm
- GILBERT Paul : The Compassionate Mind
- GRENVILLE Kate : The Lieutenant
- GRINDROD John (Ed) : Shouting at the Telly
- HAGEGE Claude : On the Death and Life of Language
- HALL Lee : The Pitmen Painters (in performance)
- HALL Sarah : How to Paint a Dead Man (Booker L/L 09)
- HAMSUN Knut
- HARDING Georgina : The Spy Game
- HARNETT Cynthia : The Wool-Pack
- HEARNE & TRITES : A Narrative Compass - Stories That Guide Women's Lives
- HILL Susan : Howards End is on the Landing
- Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary
- HODGSON BURNETT Frances : The Secret Garden
- HOGAN Edward : Blackmoor
- HUGHES Ted
- HUMBERT Agnes : Resistance
- HUNT Samantha : The Invention of Everything Else (Orange shortlist 2009)
- JEKYLL Agnes: Kitchen Essays
- JENKINS Elizabeth : The Tortoise and the Hare
- JONES Sadie : The Outcast (audio)
- KASTNER Erich : Emil and the Detectives
- KAY Francesca : An Equal Stillness
- KEILLOR Garrison : Pontoon
- KEUN Irmgard : Child of All Nations
- KEY Sarah : The Backsufferer's Bible
- KIBERD Declan : Ulysses and Us, The Art of Everyday Living
- LAMBERT Charles - The Scent of Cinnamon
- LAMBERT Charles - The Scent of Cinnamon (dgr asks...)
- LANE Patrick : Red Dog, Red Dog
- LE CARRE John : A Murder of Quality
- LE CARRE John : Call for the Dead
- LEWIS Eiluned : Dew on the Grass
- LLOYD Marjorie : Fell Farm Holiday
- MADDEN Deirdre : Molly Fox's Birthday (Orange L/L - S/L)
- MANKOWITZ Wolf : A Kid for Two Farthings
- MANTEL Hilary : Wolf Hall (Booker S/L 09)
- MANTEL Hilary on Wolf Hall
- MARAI Sándor : Esther's Inheritance
- MARRYAT Florence : The Dead Man's Message
- MAWER Simon : The Glass Room (Booker S/L 09)
- MELVILLE Pauline : Eating Air
- MICHAELS Ann : Fugitive Pieces
- MORGAN Alistair : Sleeper's Wake
- MORGAN Jude : The Taste of Sorrow
- MULLIN Chris : A View From the Foothills
- MURPHY Peter : John the Revelator
- MYERSON Julie : The Lost Child
- NEMIROVSKY Irene : Le Bal
- NEMIROVSKY Irene : Snow in Autumn
- NEMIROVSKY Irene : Suite Francaise
- NEMIROVSKY Irene : The Courilof Affair
- NESBIT E. : Five Children and It
- O'LOUGHLIN Ed : Not Untrue and Not Unkind (Booker L/L 09)
- ORWELL George : Shooting an Elephant
- PAASILINNA Arto : The Year of the Hare
- PANTER-DOWNES Mollie : Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories
- PANTER-DOWNES Mollie : Minnie's Room
- PANTER-DOWNES Mollie : One Fine Day
- PERKINS GILMAN Charlotte : The Yellow Wallpaper
- PIZZICHINI Lilian : The Blue Hour: A Portrait of Jean Rhys
- POTTER John : Tenor, History of a Voice
- PYM Barbara : Excellent Women
- PYM Barbara : No Fond Return of Love
- REYNOLDS Tom : More Blood More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea
- RHYS Jean : After Leaving Mr Mackenzie
- RHYS Jean : Smile Please
- ROBINSON Marilynne : Gilead
- ROGERS Bill : The Cleansing
- RUNCIE James : East Fortune
- SEBALD W.G. : On the Natural History of Destruction
- SHAMSIE Kamila : Burnt Shadows (Orange L/L - S/L)
- SHOWALTER Elaine : A Jury of Her Peers
- SJON : The Blue Fox
- SMITH Emma : The Great Western Beach
- SMITH Lyn : Voices Against War
- SMITH Zadie : Changing my Mind - Occasional Essays
- SMYTH Amanda : Black Rock
- SPARK Muriel : A Far Cry from Kensington
- SPARROW Dr Michael : Country Doctor Tales of a Rural GP
- STRACHAN Mari : The Earth Hums in B Flat
- STUCLEY Elizabeth : Magnolia Buildings
- SUMMERSCALE Kate : The Suspicions of Mr Whicher
- TAYLOR Alan (ed) : The Country Diaries - A Year in the British Countryside
- TAYLOR Craig : One Million Tiny Plays About Britain
- TAYLOR Elizabeth : In a Summer Season
- THOM Eleanor : The Tin-Kin
- THOMAS Aeronwy : My Father's Places
- THOMSON Keith : The Young Charles Darwin
- TOBIAS Lily
- TOBIAS Lily : Eunice Fleet
- TOEWS Miriam : The Flying Troutmans (Orange L/L)
- TOIBIN Colm : Brooklyn (Booker L/L 09)
- TREVOR William : Love and Summer (Booker L/L 09)
- TYLER L.C.: A Very Persistent Illusion
- VANN David : Legend of a Suicide
- VERITY Jo : Sweets from Morocco
- WALLER David : The Magnificent Mrs Tennant
- WATERS Sarah : The Little Stranger (Booker S/L 09)
- WEISGARBER Ann : The Personal History of Rachel DuPree (Orange L/L)
- WHIPPLE Dorothy : High Wages
- WOOD James : How Fiction Works
- WORGUL Doug : Thin Blue Smoke
- ZWEIG Stefan : Burning Secret
- ZWEIG Stefan : The Post Office Girl
Book Thoughts 2008
- ABRAMS Rebecca : Touching Distance
- ADAMS Poppy : The Behaviour of Moths
- ADAMSON Gil : The Outlander
- ADIGA Aravind : The White Tiger
- ANDERSON Sarah : Halfway to Venus
- BAGGINI Julian
- BAGNOLD Enid : The Squire
- BAINES Elizabeth : Balancing on the Edge of the World
- BALZAC Honore de : Eugenie Grandet
- BANKS Russell : The Reserve
- BARKER Nicola : Clear
- BARRETT Andrea : The Air We Breathe
- BARRY Sebastian : The Secret Scripture
- BATES H.E. : The Triple Echo
- BEARD Mary : Pompeii, The Life of a Roman Town
- BELBEN Rosalind : Our Horses in Egypt
- BENN Tony
- BERGER John : From A to X - A Story in Letters
- BIRCHALL Diana : Mrs Darcy's Dilemma
- BLACKBURN Julia : The Three of Us
- BLOCK Stefan Merrill : The Story of Forgetting
- BOLTON Janet - Textile Pictures
- BORDEN Mary : The Forbidden Zone: A Nurse's Impressions of the First World War
- BOYDEN Joseph : Through Black Spruce
- BRITTAIN Vera : Testament of Youth
- BRONTE Anne : The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- BROOKS Geraldine : People of the Book
- BROWN Gordon : Courage
- BURNS Richard : A Dance for the Moon
- CALKIN JAMES Margaret
- CANFIELD FISHER Dorothy
- CANFIELD FISHER Dorothy : The Bedquilt & Other Stories
- CAREY John : What Good are the Arts?
- CAREY Peter : His Illegal Self
- CETIN Fethiye : My Grandmother
- CHESTER Len : Bugle Boy
- CLAYE Gina : Don't Let Them Tell You How To Grieve
- COCKAYNE Emily : Hubbub : Filth, Noise & Stench in England
- CONE Libby : War on the Margins
- CRAWFORD Dorothy : Deadly Companions - How Microbes Changed the World
- CRUMEY Andrew : Sputnik Caledonia
- CUSACK Dymphna : Jungfrau
- DE KRETSER Michelle : The Lost Dog (Orange L/L 09)
- DILLARD Annie
- DORWARD Peter : Nightingale
- DOWD Siobhan : Bog Child
- DU MAURIER Daphne : Letters from Menabilly : Portrait of a Friendship (Ed. Oriel Malet)
- DU MAURIER Daphne : Letters from Menabilly : Portrait of a Friendship (Post 1)
- DU MAURIER Daphne : My Cousin Rachel
- DU MAURIER Daphne : The Loving Spirit
- DU MAURIER Daphne : The Parasites
- DU MAURIER Daphne : The Scapegoat
- ELON Emuna : If You Awaken Love
- EPSTEIN Joseph : Fred Astaire
- FENOGLIO Beppe : A Private Affair
- FERGUSON Rachel : The Brontes Went to Woolworths
- FERRIER Carol (ed) : As Good as a Yarn With You :Selected Letters of Five Australian Women Writers.
- FRAME Janet : An Angel at my Table (film)
- FRAME Janet : Owls Do Cry
- FRAME Janet : The Lagoon
- FRAME Janet : Towards Another Summer
- GALGUT Damon : The Impostor
- GALLOWAY Steven : The Cellist of Sarajevo
- GANESHANANTHAN V.V. : Love Marriage (Orange L/L 09)
- GARNER Helen : The Spare Room
- GHOSH Amitav : Sea of Poppies
- GILBAR Steven (Ed) : Reading in Bed, Personal Essays on the Glories of Reading
- GISSING George : The Nether World
- GLASPELL Susan
- GREER Andrew Sean : The Story of a Marriage
- HAIEN Jeannette : The All Of It
- HALL Lee : The Pitmen Painters
- HARDY Thomas : Under the Greenwood Tree
- HELLER Zoe : The Believers
- HENSHER Philip : The Northern Clemency (1)
- HENSHER Philip : The Northern Clemency (2)
- HILL Rosemary : Stonehenge
- HILL Susan : The Battle for Gullywith
- HILL Susan : The Beacon
- HILL Susan : The Vows of Silence
- HUTH Angela (Ed) : Well-Remembered Friends, Eulogies on Celebrated Lives
- JENKINS Robin : The Changeling
- KELLY Richard T : Crusaders
- KELLY Richard T : Crusaders (half-way thoughts)
- KLEIN Yvonne (Ed) : Beyond the Home Front
- LAMBERT Charles : Little Monsters
- LANDSMAN Anne : The Rowing Lesson
- LE CARRE John : A Most Wanted Man
- LEIGH Julia : Disquiet
- LEYSHON Nell : Devotion
- LIGHT Alison : Forever England Femininity, Literature and Conservatism Between the Wars
- LISPECTOR Clarice : The Hour of the Star
- LIVELY Penelope : Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived
- LODGE David : Deaf Sentence
- LONG James : Ferney
- LUDWIG Sidura : Holding my Breath
- MAGUIRE Elizabeth : The Open Door
- MALONE Nancy : Walking a Literary Labyrinth
- MANKELL Henning : Faceless Killers
- MANSFIELD Katherine
- MAZETTI Katarina : Benny & Shrimp
- McGAHERN John : Amongst Women
- MCGRATH Patrick : Trauma
- MCMASTER Rhyll : Feather Man
- MEGGED Aharon : The Flying Camel and the Golden Hump
- NOTHOMB Amelie : Sulphuric Acid
- O'NEILL Joseph : Netherland
- ONDAATJE Michael : Anil's Ghost
- ONDAATJE Michael : Divisadero
- ONDAATJE Michael : In the Skin of a Lion
- OSBORNE Frances : The Bolter: Idina Sackville
- OXFORD WRITERS : The Sixpenny Debt & other Oxford stories
- PALEY Grace : Collected Stories
- PALMER Ben : Friday's Child
- PATCHETT Ann : Run
- PERKINS Emily : Novel About My Wife
- PICARDIE Justine : Daphne
- PICARDIE Justine : My Mother's Wedding Dress, The Life and Afterlife of Clothes
- POWELL Violet : The Life of a Provincial Lady
- PYM Barbara : Quartet in Autumn
- PYMER Louise : Emotional Thump
- RAISIN Ross : God's Own Country
- RAPPAPORT Helen : Ekaterinburg, The Last days of the Romanovs
- RAVEL Edeet : Ten Thousand Lovers
- REES Matt : The Bethlehem Murders
- ROBYN Fiona : Small Stones
- ROTH Joseph : Rebellion
- ROUD Steve : The English Year
- SEBALD W.G.
- SEBALD W.G. : Austerlitz
- SHAFFER Mary Ann : The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
- SHEERS Owen : Resistance
- SKOLKIN-SMITH Leora : Edges, O Israel O Palestine
- SMITH Tom Rob : Child 44
- SNOW Stephanie J : Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World
- SOUCY Gaetan : Atonement
- STAMP Gavin : The Memorial to the Missing of the Somme
- STEIN Sarah Abrevaya : Plumes
- SURI Manil : The Age of Shiva
- SWIFT Katherine : The Morville Hours
- TOBIN Betsy : Ice Land
- TOMASI DI LAMPEDUSA Giuseppe : The Leopard
- TYRER Nicola : Sisters In Arms
- VASQUEZ Juan Gabriel : The Informers
- WHITEHORN Katharine : Selective Memory
- WILLIAMS Conrad : The Concert Pianist
- WOOLF Virginia : Death of the Moth
- WOOLF Virginia : The Mark on the Wall
- WOOLF Virginia : To the Lighthouse
Book Thoughts 2007
- ACOCELLA MARCHETTO Marisa : Cancer Vixen
- ADICHIE Chimamanda Ngozi : Half of a Yellow Sun
- AHMAD Imran : Unimagined
- ALMOND David : My Dad's a Birdman
- ALVTEGEN Karin : Shame
- ANAM Tahmima : A Golden Age
- ANTHONY Peter : A Town Called Immaculate
- APPELFELD Aharon : The Retreat
- ARDIZZONE Heidi : An Illuminated Life, Belle Da Costa Greene's Journey From Prejudice to Privilege
- ATWOOD Margaret : Moral Disorder
- BAIL Murray : Eucalyptus
- BAILEY Paul
- BAILEY Paul : At the Jerusalem
- BAILEY Paul : Old Soldiers
- BAILIN Miriam : The Sickroom in Victorian Fiction, the Art of Being Ill
- BAINBRIDGE Beryl : Master Georgie
- BARICCO Alessandro : An Iliad
- BARKER Nicola : Darkmans
- BARRETT Angela
- BENNETT Alan : The Uncommon Reader
- BOWER Sarah : The Needle in the Blood
- BOYD Pattie : Wonderful Today (audio)
- BOYD William : Restless
- BRYSON BILL : A Short History of Nearly Everything
- BULLER Frederick : The Domesday Book of Giant Salmon
- CALDWELL Janis McLarren : Literature and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Britain from Mary Shelley to George Eliot
- CALKIN JAMES Margaret : At the Sign of the Rainbow
- CANDAPPA Rohan : Rules Britannia
- CAPLE John : Somerset
- CARTER Angela
- CASSIDY Sheila : Made For Laughter
- CAVANAGH Mary : The Crowded Bed
- CECIL David : The Fine Art of Reading
- CHABON Michael : The Final Solution
- CHARPAK Nathalie : Kangaroo Babies
- CLARKE Brian : On Fishing
- COE Jonathan : The Rain Before It Falls
- COLETTE : Claudine's House
- COLLINS Warwick : Gents
- COUPERUS Louis : Inevitable
- CROSSLEY-HOLLAND Kevin : The Seeing Stone
- DAHL Roald : Collected Stories
- DANIEL Mark : French Letters & the English Canon
- DE LA MARE Walter : Missing
- DEVER Caroline : Death & the Mother From Dickens to Freud
- DICAMILLO Kate & IBATOULLINE Bagram : Great Joy
- DICKSON WRIGHT Clarissa : Spilling the Beans (audio)
- DOCX Edward : Self Help
- DU MAURIER Daphne
- DUNNETT Dorothy
- DYLAN Bob : Chronicles Vol 1 (audio)
- EDWARDS Kim : The Memory Keeper's Daughter
- EL SAADAWI Nawal : Woman at Point Zero
- ELIOT George : Silas Marner
- ENG Tan Twan : The Gift Of Rain
- ENGEL Matthew : Extracts From The Red Notebooks
- ENRIGHT Anne : The Gathering
- FIGES Orlando : The Whisperers
- FITZGERALD Penelope
- FITZGERALD Penelope : House of Air / The Blue Flower / Collected Letters
- FOSS Brian : War Paint : Art, War, State and Identity in Britain 1939-1945
- FREUDENBERGER Nell : The Dissident
- GAINES Ernest.J. : A Lesson Before Dying
- GALLICO Paul : The Snow Goose
- GASKELL Elizabeth : Cranford
- GERAS Adele : Facing The Light
- GERAS Adele : Yesterday, A Teenage Memoir
- GLASS Lisa : Prince Rupert's Teardrop
- GREGSON Jessica : The Angel Makers
- HAMID Mohsin :The Reluctant Fundamentalist
- HARRIS Jane :The Observations
- HILL Susan : The Man in the Picture
- HO DAVIES Peter :The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
- HORWOOD William, RAPPAPORT Helen : Dark Hearts Of Chicago
- HUGHES Ted : Selected Letters
- INDRIDASON Arnaldur : Jar City
- IZNER Claude : Murder on the Eiffel Tower
- JACOBBI Paola : I Want Those Shoes
- JAMES Henry : Washington Square
- JEROME K. Jerome : The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
- JONES Lloyd : Mister Pip
- JONES Susanna : The Missing Person's Guide to Love
- KAPLAN Justin : When the Astors Owned New York
- KARNEZIS Panos : The Birthday Party
- KAVAN Anna : Guilty
- KAVAN Anna : The Parson
- KAVAN Anna : Who Are You?
- KELLY Christine (Ed.) : Mrs Duberly's War
- KENNEDY Jonny : The Story of the Boy Whose Skin Fell Off
- KEUN Irmgard : After Midnight
- KING Rachael : The Sound Of Butterflies
- KNEALE Matthew : When We Were Romans
- LALWANI Nikita : Gifted
- LAM Vincent : Bloodletting And Miraculous Cures
- LAWSON Mary - Crow Lake
- LECLAIRE Anne : The Law Of Bound Hearts
- LEHMANN Rosamond : The Gipsy's Baby
- LESSING Doris
- LEYSHON Nell : Black Dirt
- LIPMAN Elinor : My Latest Grievance
- LONG Haniel : The Marvellous Adventure of Cabeza de Vaca
- MACINTYRE Ben : Agent Zigzag, The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman Lover, Betrayer, Hero, Spy
- MANNING Jo : My Lady Scandalous
- MAX D.T. : The Family That Couldn't Sleep
- McEWAN Ian : On Chesil Beach
- MCGRATH Melanie : The Long Exile, A True Story of Deception and Survival Amongst the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic
- MCGREGOR Jon : So Many Ways to Begin
- MENDELSON Charlotte : When We Were Bad
- MENGESTU Dinaw : The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
- MILES Betty: The Sign of the Rainbow-Margaret Calkin James
- MILLER Candi : Salt and Honey
- MILLER Miranda : Loving Mephistopheles
- MONROE P.K. : The Thursday Night Letters
- MONTGOMERY Lucy Maud
- MOSTERT Natasha : Season of the Witch
- NEMIROVSKY Irene : Suite Francaise
- NICHOLSON Virginia : Singled Out, How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War
- NOTHOMB Amelie : Loving Sabotage
- O' CONNOR Flannery : The Complete Stories
- O' FARRELL Maggie : The Vanishing Act Of Esme Lennox
- O'FLYNN Catherine: What Was Lost
- O'NEILL Onora : A Question of Trust
- ODENT Michel : Birth Reborn
- PECK Winifred : House-Bound
- PENNEY Stef : The Tenderness Of Wolves
- PERKINS GILMAN Charlotte : What Diantha Did
- PETTERSON Per : In the Wake
- PETTERSON Per : Out Stealing Horses
- PIRANDELLO Luigi : The Turn
- RABINOVITCH Dina : Take Off Your Party Dress
- RADIGUET Raymond : The Devil in the Flesh
- RAPPAPORT Helen : No Place For Ladies
- REDHILL Michael : Consolation
- REES Celia : Witch Child
- REYNOLDS Tom : Touch Me I'm Sick
- RHYS Jean
- ROTH Joseph : Flight Without End
- ROTH Joseph : Job, The Story of a Simple Man
- ROTH Joseph : The Wandering Jews
- RUBENS Bernice
- SADLER Allen : Bless 'Em All
- SAGAN Francoise
- SATRAPI Marjane : Persepolis
- SAUERWEIN Leigh : Song for Eloise
- SAVAGE Sam: Firmin
- SCOTT CHESSMAN Harriet : Lydia Cassatt Reading The Morning Paper
- SEBALD W.G.
- SEBALD W.G. : The Emigrants
- SEBOLD Alice
- SEBOLD Alice : The Lovely Bones
- SERVANT Bob : Delete This at Your Peril
- SEWELL Kitty : Ice Trap
- SHEFFIELD Rob : Love is a Mix Tape
- SINHA Indra : Animal's People
- SLOUKA Mark : The Visible World
- SMAILES Caroline : In Search of Adam
- SMITH Craig : The Painted Messiah
- SOFER Dalia : The Septembers of Shiraz
- SONTAG Susan
- SOSEKI Natsume : Kokoro
- SPALDING Frances : Gwen Raverat, Friends, Family and Affections
- SPENCER Amy : The Crafter Culture Handbook
- SPIOTTA Dana : Eat The Document
- STIFTER Adalbert : Abdias
- STIFTER Adalbert : Brigitta
- SWIFT Patience : The Last Good Man
- TAYLOR Kressman : Address Unknown
- THOMAS Ruth : Things To Make And Mend
- TOMALIN Claire : Thomas Hardy The Time-Torn Man
- TRETHEWEY Rachel : Mistress of the Arts
- TREVOR-ROPER Patrick : The World Through Blunted Sight
- TYLER Anne : Digging to America
- TYLER L.C.: The Herring Seller's Apprentice
- VESAAS Tarjei : The Ice Palace
- WAGNER Erica : Seizure
- WHARTON Edith : The Touchstone
- WHITAKER Phil : The Face
- WIGFALL Clare : The Loudest Sound and Nothing
- WIGFALL Clare : The Loudest Sound and Nothing
- WILLIAMS Niall : As It Is In Heaven
- WILLIAMS Niall : As It Is in Heaven
- WILLIAMS Niall : Only Say The Word
- WILLIAMS Niall : Only Say the Word
- WINTERMANS Caspar : Lord Alfred Douglas
- WODEHOUSE P.G.
- WOOLF Virginia : Night And Day
- WOOLF Virginia : On Being Ill
- WOOLF Virginia : The Platform of Time
- ZIMLER Richard : The Seventh Gate
- ZWEIG Stefan : Twilight Moonbeam Alley
Book Thoughts 2006
- ADAMS Lorraine : Harbor
- ADICHIE Chimamanda Ngozi
- ALMOND David : Skellig
- ARNIM Elizabeth von : Vera
- ATWOOD Margaret
- BARRY Sebastian : A Long Long Way
- BAXTER Charles : Saul and Patsy
- BIRDSELL Sandra : The Russlander
- BOXALL Peter (Ed.) : 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
- BOYLE T C : Talk Talk
- BURNARD Bonnie : A Good House
- CALLIL Carmen : Bad Faith
- CANFIELD FISHER Dorothy : The Bedquilt
- CARR J L : A Month In The Country
- CHAON Dan : You Remind Me Of Me
- CLARKE Susanna : The Ladies of Grace Adieu
- CLAUDEL Philippe : Grey Souls
- COOLIDGE Susan : What Katy Did
- DE HORNE VAIZEY Mrs George : Pixie O' Shaughnessey
- DEVINE Harriet : Being George Devine's Daughter
- DIDION Joan : A Year Of Magical Thinking
- DRABBLE Margaret : The Sea Lady
- DUNCKER Patricia : Miss Webster and Cherif
- EDRIC Robert : Gathering The Water
- ENCHI Fumiko : The Waiting Years
- GERAS Adele : The Fabulous Fantoras
- GRENVILLE Kate : The Secret River
- GRUEN Sara : Water For Elephants
- HANNAH Sophie : Little Face
- HOBBS Peter : The Short Day Dying
- HORNBY Nick : The Complete Polysyllabic Spree
- HORWOOD William : Skallagrigg
- HYLAND M J : Carry Me Down
- INDRIDASON Arnaldur : Silence Of The Grave
- JACOBSON Howard : Kalooki Nights
- KEUN Irmgard : The Artificial Silk Girl
- LAIRD Elizabeth : Red Sky In The Morning
- LAKIN Warren (Ed.) : The Very Best Of Linda Smith
- LAURENCE Margaret
- LEVI Primo : Moments Of Reprieve
- LYNCH Jim : The Highest Tide
- MCGAHERN John : The Barracks
- MCKAY Ami : The Birth House
- MEDVEI Cornelius : Mr Thundermug
- MESSUD Claire : The Emperor's Children
- MICHAEL Charles D. : Heroines : True Tales of Brave Women, A Book for British Girls
- MOBERG Vilhelm : The Emigrants
- MUIR R : The Miniature Man
- MULLIN Patricia : Gene Genie
- MURR NAEEM : The Perfect Man
- NOTHOMB Amelie : Antichrista
- NOTHOMB Amelie : Fear and Trembling
- NOTHOMB Amelie : The Character Of Rain
- PORTMAN Frank : King Dork
- POTOK Chaim : My Name Is Asher Lev
- RAVEL Edeet : A Wall Of Light
- REYNOLDS Tom : Blood, Sweat and Tea
- RHODES Danny : Asboville
- ROTH Joseph : Hotel Savoy
- ROTH Joseph : The Radetzky March
- RUSTON Jessica : Heroines : The Bold The Bad and The Beautiful
- SALZMAN Mark : Lying Awake
- SEBALD W.G. : The Rings of Saturn
- SHRIVER Lionel : Double Fault
- SLAVIN Helen : The Extra Large Medium
- SMILEY Jane : 13 Ways Of Looking At The Novel
- SNOW C P : The Masters
- ST AUBYN Edward : Mother's Milk
- ST AUBYN Edward : Mother's Milk
- TARTT Donna : The Secret History
- TOEWS Miriam : A Boy Of Good Breeding
- WATERS Sarah : The Night Watch
- WILLIAMS Kate : England's Mistress
- ZOLA Emile : Au Bonheur Des Dames
- ZOLA Emile : Terese Raquin
- ZUSAK Markus : The Book Thief
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Wednesday, September 06, 2006
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Anticipating...
Beating the Bounds...
Reflecting...
Gillian Clarke: At the Source: A Writer's Year
'On the first day of January I open a new journal and mark the clean page with a date, location, a first sentence...it is always an unlined, hardback black book, three inches by five..The first words print the field of snow...'Robert Macfarlane: Mountains of the Mind: a History of a Fascination
'Contemplating the immensities of deep time, you face, in a way that is both exquisite and horrifying, the total collapse of your present, compacted to nothingness by the pressures of pasts and futures too extensive to envisage...'Tony Judt: The Memory Chalet
'Thus I realize that as a child I was observing far more than understood. Perhaps all children do this, in which case what distinguishes me is only the opportunity that catastrophic ill-health has afforded me to retrieve those observations in a consistent manner... I have a variety of uses to which I can put them. For this alone I consider myself a very lucky man.'
Inspiring...
Text by Simon Martin: Mark Hearld's Work Book
'The artist Mark Hearld takes his inspiration from nature, creating bold, enchanting visions of the landscapes, plants and animals that surround us...'
Listening...
Virginia Woolf: To The Lighthouse
“Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,” said Mrs Ramsay. “But you’ll have to be up with the lark,” she added. To her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were settled, the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which he had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night’s darkness and a day’s sail, within touch...
Living...
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Jane Austen: Emma
'A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter,'
Poet of the Moment...
My Nature Table - Spring 2013
2013
Team Middlemarch
2012
Philip Hensher: The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting, and Why it Still Matters
Miriam Darlington: Otter Country: In Search of the Wild Otter
Hannah Rothschild: The Baroness: The Search for Nica the Rebellious Rothschild
Kate Summerscale: Mrs Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady
Phil Dampier: What's in the Queen's Handbag: And Other Royal Secrets
- Virginia Spiers: Silver River: An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
Merryn Williams: Effie: A Victorian Scandal - From Ruskin's Wife to Millais's Muse
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My contribution to The Health Issue of The Reader No.41
2011
Julia Blackburn: Thin Paths: Journeys in and around an Italian Mountain Village
Simon Barnes: Birdwatching With Your Eyes Closed: An Introduction to Birdsong
Aileen Ribeiro: Facing Beauty: Painted Women and Cosmetic Art
Alan Paton: Cry, the Beloved Country: A Story of Comfort in Desolation
Matthew Hollis: Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas
Elizabeth Speller: The Sunlight on the Garden: A Family in Love, War and Madness
Edmund de Waal: The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
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May 2013
Knitting
The Tinker's Book
Len Chester: Bugle Boy
Father of dgr and primary historical source now published and on the shelves at a bookshop near you.
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Team Tolstoy
- Team Tolstoy
A year-long shared read of War & Peace through the centenary year of Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy's death, starting on his birthday, September 9th 2010. Everyone is welcome to board the troika and read along, meeting here on the 9th of every month to chat in comments about the book. - Team Tolstoy Bookmark
Don't know your Bolkonskys from your Rostovs? An aide memoire that can be niftily printed and laminated into a double-sided bookmark.
Persephone
- Flush, a biography ~ Virginia Woolf
- Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes
- GRAHAM Eleanor ~ The Children Who Lived in a Barn (with Cornflower)
- High Wages ~ Dorothy Whipple (with Cornflower)
- Kitchen Essays ~ Agnes Jekyll (with Cornflower)
- Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary ~ Ruby Ferguson (with Cornflower)
- Minnie's Room ~ Mollie Panter-Downes
- On the Other Side ~ Mathilde Wolffe - Monckeberg
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