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This Census-Taker by China Miéville #ABookADayInMay No.4
A boy ran down a hill path screaming. The boy was I. He held his hands up and out in front of him as if he’d dipped them in paint and was coming to make a picture, to press them down to paper, but all...
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Mystery at Geneva by Rose Macaulay #ABookADayInMay No.5
Today’s book is a curio by a relatively well-known writer. Lots of us love Rose Macaulay’s novels, whether that be her famous Towers of Trebizond or the delightfully funny, wry books she wrote in the...
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Cannery Row by John Steinbeck #ABookADayInMay No.6
My friend Matt recommended Cannery Row (1939) by John Steinbeck back in 2009, and I ordered a copy which has sat on my shelves for 15 years. Now it is neglected no longer! And I really enjoyed the...
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Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham #ABookADayInMay No.7
Today was a lovely sunny day, and I spent quite a lot of it sat in the garden reading Margery Allingham’s 1931 detective novel Police at the Funeral. Something I discovered in previous book-a-day...
View ArticleHow To Be a Deb’s Mum by ‘Petronella Portobello’ #ABookADayInMay No.8
Hayley/Desperate Reader gave me her copy of How To Be A Deb’s Mum (1957) by Petronella Portobello a couple of years ago – she wrote about it on her blog – and rightly thought that it would be up my...
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Cold Water by Gwendoline Riley #ABookADayInMay No.9
Last year everyone seemed to be reading My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley. I couldn’t decide if it was likely to be my cup of tea or not, but I decided to take a chance on Cold Water (2002) when I...
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Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country by Louise Erdrich #ABookADayInMay No.10
I haven’t read any of Louise Erdrich’s novels, which I know are well-regarded, but that didn’t stop me being very interested in Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country (2003), which Daunt Books have now...
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History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera #ABookADayInMay No.11
Today I finished the audiobook of History Is All You Left Me (2017) by Adam Silvera. I first came across his writing when I stumbled upon the title They Both Die At The End. It shows the power of a...
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Tea or Books? #116: Do We Like Books About Sport and Quick Curtain vs It...
John Dickson Carr, Alan Melville, sports – welcome to episode 116! https://www.stuckinabook.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/tea-or-books-116.mp3 In the first half, we talk about sports in books – do we...
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Gerald: A Portrait by Daphne du Maurier #ABookADayInMay No.12
I usually try to join in Ali’s Daphne du Maurier Reading Week, though I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it work with finishing a book a day in May, since none of the candidates on my shelves were...
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Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor #ABookADayInMay No.13
A short review as I’m just off to a Eurovision party! I think Palladian (1946) might be my final Elizabeth Taylor novel (though, now I write that, unsure I’ve read In A Summer Season) – it was one of...
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The Forensic Records Society by Magnus Mills #ABookADayInMay No.14
I love Magnus Mills and have been reading him for years, and have a few on the shelves that I thought would be likely to come up in my May reading. The Forensic Records Society (2017) was a gift last...
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Making Love by Jean-Philippe Toussaint #ABookADayInMay No.15
I bought Making Love (2002) by the Belgian novelist Jean-Philippe Toussaint back in 2014, in an edition translated by Linda Coverdale – unusually, and pleasingly, her name even makes the cover. It’s a...
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Foster by Claire Keegan #ABookADayInMay No.16
Today’s book is so short that it is almost a short story – 88 pages, or an hour and half as an audiobook (which is how I read it – indeed, since I listen to audiobooks fast, it was a little under an...
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The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight #ABookADayInMay No.17
I didn’t know anything about The Premonitions Bureau (2022) by Sam Knight when it turned up in the Audible sale – but the title, the cover, and the unexpected subtitle telling me that it was a true...
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A Flat Place by Noreen Masud #ABookADayInMay No.18
I knew Noreen Masud a bit when our paths overlapped in Oxford, and we’ve stayed in touch on social media, so I was really interested when I saw she’d published A Flat Place: A Memoir (2023) – and I’m...
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The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka #ABookADayInMay No.19
I think I picked up The Buddha in the Attic (2011) at a day that Penguin ran for book bloggers back in 2013 and it has survived numerous culls of my shelves since then on account of its brevity. It’s...
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Amaryllis Night and Day by Russell Hoban #ABookADayInMay No.21
In case anybody is counting – yes, I did read No.20 in A Book A Day in May and didn’t blog about it. The book I read is Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott, and it’s one of the books in the next episode of Tea...
View ArticleTo Let by John Galsworthy #ABookADayInMay No.22
Super quick post tonight, because it’s late. In fact, let’s do it in bullet points. I read To Let by John Galsworthy, originally published in 1921 (In fact, I listened to the audiobook – which was...
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It Ends With Revelations by Dodie Smith #ABookADayInMay No.23
Back in 2012, lots of us were excited when Corsair reprinted some hard-to-find Dodie Smith novels – and with lovely cover illustrations by Sara Mulvanny. I’d already read The Town in Bloom (borrowed...
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