Middle age teaches us many things, one of which is that you never know what goes on in someone else’s marriage. At the end of the day, once the doors are closed and the curtains drawn, our dearest friends could be hanging from the chandelier with a bottle of Grey Goose in one hand and […]
It’s always a good day when you open a new novel for the first time, but never more so than when it’s author is Jane Harper and the book in question is one you didn’t think you would have the opportunity to read for the next few months. Imagine my delight when my summer vacation […]
Dear Reader, I’m a total softie when it comes to books written in letter format. I don’t know what it is, but I just love them. Isn’t everything softer and easier in a letter? It’s a gentler pace, the waiting or even yearning for a response. They take a level of consideration, of planning out, […]
My dear friend Ms S advised me to read The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg. As we find ourselves rapidly pacing through our forties, the daunting fifties seem to be knocking at the door. The kids are growing older and the concerns of young children are no longer ours to share. Who knows […]
My friend Ms M and I often laugh about how we sometimes choose a book based solely on its cover. We know we shouldn’t and yet we do. Clearly the pair us are susceptible to good marketing techniques, but on occasion it can lead us in just the right direction, toward a lovely and unexpected […]
I really wish I was friends with Celeste Ng. Child Number One recently encouraged me to join Twitter in order to make my blog more successful and less of a pet project. Reluctantly I began the process and if the truth be told, I still don’t really understand what I’m doing and I’m pretty sure […]
If you want a book that is genuinely going to make you smile this summer, then you could do a lot worse than purchasing or borrowing The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms. It’s a total enjoyment fest! I had never heard of Kelly Harms, but by chance came across her whilst on […]
Living in northern California, close to San Francisco, I seldom have reason to ever really consider what life in Los Angeles must be like. In the last ten years, beyond the amusement parks that litter the LA suburbs, I’ve never had reason or need to visit. As a backpacking European in the 1990s, a friend […]
There are some books that you simply live as you read, part wishing that this life could be yours. Paris By The Book by Liam Callanan is one of them. Callanan tells the story of Leah, a mother of two girls, living in Milwaukee and married to novelist, Robert Eady. Robert has a good deal […]
Many years ago, when Child Number One was very small and I still lived in London, my dear friend Ms S and I used to frequent any number of playgrounds to occupy our children and to fill our days. This was in an era long before the iPhone became ubiquitous, when it was still possible […]
Nutshell Book Reviews 