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.
Category Archives: Book
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.
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Read: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell ★★★★★ 📚 I enjoyed everything about this, the detail of life at the time and the natural world and the sadness. The idea of Shakespeare as almost a secondary character is solid.
The Book of Echoes by Rosanna Amaka
Read The Book of Echoes by Rosanna Amaka ★★★★☆ 📚 told by a ghost or spirt, it covers the lives of two folk, a Brixton boy and Nigerian girl. Both places far from my ken, educating but never dull.
A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin
Read: A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin ★★★☆☆ enjoyed this tale of older Rebus.
Read: Music Love Drugs War by Geraldine Quigley ★★★★★ 📚
Beautiful book about a group of youths in 1981 in Derry in the midst of the troubles. Their difficulty in expressing themselves & sharing feelings is heart-wrenching. I raced through this.