I have never viewed myself as much of a Halloween person. I tend to see it as a bother, rather than a seasonal celebration, but this year I missed it. In some ways, I went through the rhythms of the season; a trip to the pumpkin patch, my friend’s – socially distanced – pumpkin carving […]
Ever since The Husband left there’s been one particular aspect of life that I’ve been struggling with: technology. The Husband, who worked for Google, loved everything to do with modern technology and what you could do with it around the home. From when I first met him, he would stare at me with incredulity when […]
There was no way on God’s green earth that, having finished Mr Flood’s Last Resort, I wasn’t going to read another Jess Kidd novel. Her writing is too weird and wonderful to be missed and so, I bought myself a copy of Himself. Oh my goodness, it was even better that the previous read! More […]
Every now and then a writer comes along that really excites you because she, or he, is just so amazingly different. It doesn’t always have to be a high-brow reading experience that challenges conventions of grammar or story construction. Sometimes it can just be a writer that is fun to read and hard to put […]
As with a silent companion, this book snuck up on me. I finished it two nights ago and have been thinking about it ever since as, just like a Henry James novel, I’m not entirely sure what I just read. Was it a descent into madness, was it a ghost story, a betrayal? What? What […]
Imagine yourself in Bob Hope Airport, Burbank, Los Angeles, at about 5pm on a Saturday afternoon. There is only one shop open because your flight is the last one leaving. That shop only seems to sell candy, pop and the new Amy Schumer book, which although doubtless hilarious, you don’t really feel like reading in […]
Two words spring to mind when I consider the novels of Simone St. James: literary crack. Truly, I have no idea exactly why I enjoy her writing so much, but I have now read all four of her novels and bought them for my mother too. I can hardly wait for her fifth novel to […]
Rooms is a very clever book. It has taken me quite a long time to write this review, largely because I really wasn’t too sure when I finished this story what I thought of it. I knew I liked it, but did I really love it? Rooms is a ghost story, but not like any […]
Nutshell Book Reviews 