#10Books of Summer — a sort of plan
Summer is fast approaching which means it's time once more for the #20BooksofSummer #20BOS26 reading challenge. I've joined in every year for the past ten years but have never once got close to reading twenty books. So I'm being realistic this year and shooting…
The Classics Club: Spin#44
it's time for another round of the classic club spin and this time I'm hoping to get Zola.
A Long Winter by Colm Tóibin — Review
Every book by Colm Tóbin I've read to date has had a female central character. The novella A Long Winter demonstrates without question that he can write from a male perspective just as powerfully. This is a story about loss and survival told from the…
TBR Book Jar Lucky Dip — May 2026
My TBR Book Jar has enjoyed an extended holiday over the past few months while I concentrated on books I already knew I was going to read. Now that Reading Wales, Reading Ireland and the 1961 club are behind me, I finally have an opportunity to use the jar to elp…
My Reading Life: May 2026
May was the month in which I decided to part company with Angela Thirkell and her Barsetshire Chronicles series. I know she's much loved by readers for her humorous depiction of English village life between the wars. But they're not to my taste. There are thirty books in…
Review round up: Emma Kavanagh, Alis Hawkins
I'm playing catch up with reviews. These two novels are both by Welsh authors but I couldn't fit them into ReadingWales'26. Falling by Emma Kavanagh Emma Kavanagh's draws on her experience as a psychologist with the police service for her debut novel…
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans — life between the lines
One of my favourite episodes in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series of dramatic monologues concerns a voracious letter-writer. The main character in A Lady of Letters, Irene Ruddock , hides her loneliness behind a stream of letters to…
Pulse by Cynan Jones — nature in the raw
Pulse is another lean, intense work of fiction by Welsh author Cynan Jones. This is a collection of short stories deeply rooted in the rural life Jones knows so well — he was born in a traditional farming community in West Wales and worked on the land…
My Reading Life: April 2026
I ended my last "My Reading Life" update with this statement: I'm hoping to get back to my Classic Club list and pick up another couple of African authors. That's the idea - whether April will turn out that way is an entirely different matter. That turned out to be…
Classic Club Spin #44 Lands On Jean Rhys
The Classics Club Spin landed on number 7 thus delivering me a novel I have been intending to read for several years. Quartet ,published in 1929, was the first novel written by Jean Rhys, one of four books thought to be highly autobiographical. It's set in…
BookerTalk
BookerTalk
Pulse is another lean, intense work of fiction by Welsh author Cynan Jones. This is a collection of short stories deeply rooted in the rural life Jones knows so well — he was born in a traditional farming community in West Wales and worked on the land before becoming a writer. The world of Pulse is very similar to that depicted in his short novels, …
Summer is fast approaching which means it's time once more for the #20BooksofSummer #20BOS26 reading challenge. I've joined in every year for the past ten years but have never once got close to reading twenty books. So I'm being realistic this year and shooting for the #10booksofsummer option while hoping to do do a little better than that. That's what I love about this "challenge" — it's so flexible.
Every book by Colm Tóbin I've read to date has had a female central character. The novella A Long Winter demonstrates without question that he can write from a male perspective just as powerfully. This is a story about loss and survival told from the perspective of Miquel, a young man in his early twenties. One morning in the depths of winter, his mother goes missing from their home high in the Pyrenees.
May was the month in which I decided to part company with Angela Thirkell and her Barsetshire Chronicles series. I know she's much loved by readers for her humorous depiction of English village life between the wars. But they're not to my taste. There are thirty books in this series.I read the first one — High Rising — ten years ago and thought then, that would be my first and last.
One of my favourite episodes in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series of dramatic monologues concerns a voracious letter-writer. The main character in A Lady of Letters, Irene Ruddock , hides her loneliness behind a stream of letters to newspapers, grieving relatives of a woman she barely knew, The Queen, crematorium officials and the police. Sybil Van Antwerp, the central figure in Virginia Evans's…
I'm playing catch up with reviews. These two novels are both by Welsh authors but I couldn't fit them into ReadingWales'26. Falling by Emma Kavanagh Emma Kavanagh's draws on her experience as a psychologist with the police service for her debut novel Falling . It begins with a plane crash in the Black Mountains in mid Wales shortly after take off in heavy snow.
My TBR Book Jar has enjoyed an extended holiday over the past few months while I concentrated on books I already knew I was going to read. Now that Reading Wales, Reading Ireland and the 1961 club are behind me, I finally have an opportunity to use the jar to elp guide my decision on what to read next. For the benefit of anyone new to this blog, the idea of my TBR book jar is to select three titles on the first of each month and committ to reading one of those titles within two months.
I ended my last "My Reading Life" update with this statement: I'm hoping to get back to my Classic Club list and pick up another couple of African authors. That's the idea - whether April will turn out that way is an entirely different matter. That turned out to be wishful thinking on my part. I didn't read any books from my Classics Club books nor did I read a single African author.
The Classics Club Spin landed on number 7 thus delivering me a novel I have been intending to read for several years. Quartet ,published in 1929, was the first novel written by Jean Rhys, one of four books thought to be highly autobiographical. It's set in Paris where Mayra and her husband Stephan live a hand-to-mouth existence supported by occasional sales of artworks.
