Read: The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo ★★★★☆ 📚
I exist as either a small canid with thick fur, pointed ears, and neat to black feet, or a young woman. Neither are safe forms in a world run by men
Had be believing in a main character that was a fox god. Told from 2 engaging points of view, the fox & an aging detective in 1908 Manchuria. In part mystery story but a lot more fun.
Read Orbital By Samantha Harvey ★★★★☆ 📚
Six astronauts and cosmonauts watch the earth roll 16 times in 24 hours. Plotless, thoughts ,observations & meditations.
yet hard to believe in anything but that blackness, which is alive, and breathing and beckoning. If Nell had ever been afraid of nothingness, once she was in it she was consoled by it inexplicably and yearned
Read: Overland by Yasmin Cordery Khan ★★★★☆ 📚
Unlikely, slightly unlikeable & possibly unreliable narrator Joyce tags along with two posh boys on the hippy trail. It feels like disaster is on the way.
Read: Cairn by Kathleen Jamie ★★★★★ 📚
The common curlew, as the old books have it,
Fragments, essays, poems & notes, following the natural world, and the mess we have made of it. Beautiful.
Read: West by Carys Davies ★★★★★ 📚
There is something endlessly pleasant about the quick flurries of bats in the trees at this time of day, and the soft crepitation of insects all around: a steady in-out susurration as if the earth itself is breathing.
Lovely book so brief & clear. A handful of characters, simply drawn. Cy, obsessed by possible monsters heads west into wild lands leaving his daughter in an awful situation.
Read: Skippy Dies by Paul Murray ★★★★☆ 📚
Irish private boy’s school. Some laugh out loud teenage dialogue, some horrible teenage drama. Multiple voices & pov weave towards a messy ending that didn’t quite pay off for me, although that might be the point. Still kept me reading for nearly 700 pages.
Read: The Last Voice You Hear by Mick Heron ★★★ 📚
Effective Detective as you would expect. Maybe a bit too much physical action for me. Nice twist to end setting up further stories.
Read: The Lost Wife by Susanna Moore ★★★★☆ 📚
Short but engaging fiction based on a real life memoir. Settlers & Sioux clash in 1855. The narrator, Sarah, has no self pity despite a troubled life. Felt like a realistic picture of the times both filthy & surprising. Characters are complex.
Read: Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin ★★★☆☆ 📚
I am reading more Rankin, not necessarily in the right order. This early Rebus is a wee bit different than the later versions. A nicely tangled plot woven across Edinburgh society from junkies to the higher reaches. Corruption all the way.
Read: Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah ★★★☆☆ 📚
Dystopia, prisoners fight to the death. Illuminating prisons & racism. Parallels with sport, advertising & reality TV. Quite a page turner, too much on weapons, technical details etc. great footnotes mix fact & fiction.
