Read Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal ★★★★☆ 📚
An introduction, for me, to a strange artistic world painting trompe-l’œil. Lovely long sentences. The heroine has a ‘lazy’ eye looking two ways at once. The eye recalls Dory Previn – The Holy Man on Malibu Bus Number 3
Category Archives: Book
Read: Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd ★★★★☆ 📚 This 1946 novel is a lot of fun. Miss Ranskill Returns from a desert island to war time Britain. Confusion and poking fun ensue.
Read: Birdsong in the time of silence by Steven Lovett ★★★★★ 📚a metaphor filled recount of bird listening in lockdown along with many diversions into memory & natural history. Like many I spent a bit of time with birds during the first lockdown. This is a deeper dive.
Read: The President’s Last Love by Andrey Kurkov ★★★☆☆ 📚 life story of Ukrainian President Bunin. Simultaneously recounting three different time periods. Slightly surreal, satirical with hints of Bulgakov with out going the full “Heart of a Dog”. Gentleness too.
Read: Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro ★★★★★ 📚
“Never let me go” comes to my mind regularly, wonderful book & film. This is a gentler take on the same territory. Crystal clear storytelling.
Read: The Sea Is Not Made of Water by Adam Nicolson ★★★★☆ 📚
Somewhat about the life in 3 tidal pools the author made. Shoreline nature, history of Argyll, sea & planet. I particularly enjoyed the ecology of the shore, the relationship between limpets, winkles crabs & seaweed.
Read: The Case of the General’s Thumb by Andrey Kurkov ★★★★☆ 📚 Ukrainian police and Russian KGB race around in a confusing and occasionally daft plot. The characters as lost as the reader. If you see a backward shooting gun in the first act…
This Is Your Mind On Plants
Read: This Is Your Mind On Plants by Michael Pollan 📚 ★★★☆☆
Three chapters, opium, caffeine, and mescaline. The opium one was recycled from some time ago, it would have been interesting to read more about the opiate crisis in modern times in the USA and the drug companies.
The coffee chapter was quite fascinating, given it is the one of the three I use. The social/political aspects were an interesting introduction to the area.
The mescaline chapter dug into some Native American/American Indian information and ideas. Including that some prefer the name Indian to Native American. I found this and the surrounding politics of mescaline more interesting that the effects of the drug.
Read Second Place by Rachel Cusk ★★★★☆ 📚 pretty intense narrator who is obsessed with self absorbed artist.
Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
Read: Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby ★★☆☆☆ 📚too much driving and gun fighting for me. I should have read the blurb🤣 I can see some folk loving it, as it is exciting and tight.