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Summer Half by Angela Thirkell – belated #1937Club guest post!
I normally don’t post ‘club’ reviews after the week has finished – but we all make exceptions for our mothers, and here is my Mum (Anne – also known as Our Vicar’s Wife, for longterm blog readers)...
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#ABookADayInMay is back! And I didn’t like the first one!
It’s May again, and that can only mean one thing – I’m doing A Book A Day in May again! I don’t know if Madame Bibi is planning to do a novella a day in May again, as I am merely following her lead...
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Valentino by Natalia Ginzburg #ABookADayInMay Day 2
Happily, day two of A Book A Day in May was much more successful – and, somehow, even shorter. Only 62 pages! And yet Ginzburg gets a whole world into Valentino (1957), translated by Avril Bardoni. It...
View ArticleThe Camomile by Catherine Carswell #ABookADayInMay – Day 3
Off to 1920s Scotland for the latest in my A Book A Day In May journey – and The Camomile by Catherine Carswell. The narrator is Ellen Carstairs, a clever, slightly cynical woman in her early 20s. She...
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A delightful reread for #ABookADayInMay – Day 4
I read Ashcombe (1949) by Cecil Beaton back in 2012, sitting in the Bodleian Library. I quickly knew I needed my own copy – and this beautiful edition arrived. Here we are, 12 years later, and I have...
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Joe Cinque’s Consolation by Helen Garner #ABookADayInMay Day 5
Today I had an action-packed day in London, and I did get through quite a lot of a book on the train to and from, but not a whole book. Luckily I only had 40 minutes left on an audiobook of Joe...
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Elizabeth Goudge and Maggie O’Farrell
As with previous A Book A Day in May challenges, sometimes I’m doubling up on days – and in the past two days I have finished a 407pp book (The Heart of the Family by Elizabeth Goudge) and a 484pp book...
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Sweet Desserts by Lucy Ellmann #ABookADayInMay Day 8
Like, I suspect, a lot of people, I first heard of Lucy Ellmann when her behemoth, one-sentence novel Ducks, Newburyport made a big splash. I was and am intrigued to read it, but rather put off by the...
View ArticleDays 9 and 10 of #ABookADayInMay
Some super quick thoughts about two days of books! Both are books I finished, but did not start, on the respective days. The Thursday Murder Club (2020) by Richard Osman What is there to say about this...
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A Body Made of Glass by Caroline Crampton – #ABookADayInMay Day 11
When I was shopping in Blackwells bookshop last weekend, I saw A Body Made of Glass (2024) by Caroline Crampton on a display table and was very intrigued. As the month had rolled over, I had my 15...
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Mind, Body, Forest, French: 3 non-fiction reads for #ABookADayInMay
I’ve been getting my reading done for A Book A Day in May, but not very good at fitting in writing about the books – so today we have a triple whammy. And the last three books I’ve read have all been...
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Two frenetic novellas #ABookADayInMay – Days 15+16
The past couple of days, I’ve read two quite strange novellas. I don’t think they have anything in common except strangeness, so let’s dive in. The Following Story (1991) by Cees Nooteboom I hadn’t...
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A Book A Day in May – Days 17, 18, 19
I’ve not been blogging, but I have been keeping up with my reading. One of these (the middle) I read entirely outside on a sunny Saturday. The first and last of the trio were books I mostly listened to...
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Shadow Lines by Nicholas Royle #ABookADayInMay Day 20
Today’s book is another one I can lay at Karen’s door, with her recent review, but I was always likely to get hold of Nicholas Royle’s Shadow Lines (2024) since I enjoyed White Spines so much. That...
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A very short novella by Vita Sackville-West #ABookADayInMay no.21
I read Vita Sackville-West’s The Death of Noble Godavary back in 2019, as part of another book-a-day project, but it’s taken me another five years to read the second novella in the slim volume. It’s...
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The Chip and the Block by E.M. Delafield – #ABookADayInMay Day 22
E.M. Delafield was a very prolific novelist, and even though I’ve been reading her steadily for more than 20 years, there is still a handful of her books I’ve not read. I am pretty sure I’ve owned The...
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A couple of #ABookADayInMay disappointments
Inevitably, not every book in A Book A Day in May is going to be a success. The past couple of days have both been novellas that are gonna go straight to a charity shop (unless someone from the UK...
View ArticleA round up of audiobooks (#ABookADayInMay, sort of)
Today’s book was finishing off an audiobook that I don’t have masses to say about, so I thought I’d use it as an excuse to round up a whole bunch of audiobooks I’ve listened to this year – so I can...
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Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill #ABookADayInMay Day 26
I can’t remember who first recommended Dept. of Speculation (2014) to me, but it was on one of the posts where I talked about loving books told in fragments – specifically Kate Briggs’ This Little...
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A couple more #ABookADayInMay books (Sylvia Townsend Warner + Marjorie Stewart)
We’re nearly there, everyone! The end is in sight, and it looks HOPEFUL that I’m going to make it. I’m not gonna lie, it’s been harder this year for various reasons – but we can save those thoughts for...
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