Read: The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave ★★★☆☆ 📚
Really interesting setting & background, remote 1600s Norway & witch hunting following the pattern of King James. The story flowed along but no real surprises.
Category Archives: Book
Read: The Shape of Water, by Andrea Camilleri ★★★☆☆ 📚
Turns out I must have read this years ago. And seen the episode of the T.V. series I think. A light read somewhat non-woke language here and there, mouthwatering food descriptions.
Read: The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang ★★★★★ 📚
Really loved this engaging & exciting book. Set in a Midwest family run Chinese restaurant using The Brothers Karamazov as a template in a brilliant way. Food to die for, familial murder, racism & the American dream.
Read: Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman ★★★☆☆ 📚
Good fun Georgian mystery, no great suprises.
Read: Upgrade by Blake Crouch 📚★★★☆☆
Climate change, gene editing, upgrades for humans. So fast paced you don’t really think about possible plot holes. Very much a page turner.
Read: The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney & Ian Rankin 📚★★★☆☆
Mcllvanney left half a manuscript, finished by Ian Rankin. Good page turner. Especially enjoyable for the 1972 Glasgow setting, chain smoking, pints & whisky in pretty rough pubs. The hero travels on the bus!
Read: Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka 📚
A huge complicated baggy book. Perhaps reflecting the chaos of reality too much to read smoothly. Sometimes exciting, sometimes amusing & quite often baffling to me. I suspect some knowledge of recent Nigerian politics would help.
Read: Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flyn ★★★★★ 📚
The book travels to places abandoned by people & recovered to varying degrees by nature. It evokes the ‘islands’ weirdness powerfully. The last chapters go further, reaching into deep time, climate crisis & even faith. Marvellous.
Read: Rizzio by Denise Mina, ★★★★☆ short account of the murder. Not too much in the way of backstory, but lots of detail & characters. Fits very well with the painting by Sir William Allan.
Featured image: Out of Copyright, National Galleries of Scotland.
In Search of One Last Song
In Search of One Last Song: Britain’s disappearing birds and the people trying to save them Patrick Galbraith ★★★☆☆
The author’s meeting with a cross section of folk working in bird conservation, talking about the birds they love. Not the usual conservation suspects, but farmers and keepers along with poets and RSPB types. The subjects sometimes had very differing opinions from each other. They also often differ and argue against the usual conservation narrative. This made for interesting reading.
Reading this in short bursts rather than a few longer sittings I was sometime confused by jumps between different conversations and subject. Each voice appeared and left without out much of a formal introduction & conclusion.
Thanks to 4th Estate & William Collins and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review.