Read: Pine by Francine Toon ★★★★☆ “Gothic Horror” is well out of my usual reading zone, but I enjoyed the slow introduction of the hopeless father & his daughter in the highlands. 📚

Read: Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor ★★★★☆ lots of fun with the life of Bram Stoker. Told through fragments of notes, letters and memories. Some nice opacity, hints and the odd ghost.

Read Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins ★★★☆☆ pretty twisted tale with an increasingly suspect unreliable narrator. Tense & queasy.

Read:  The Odyssey by Homer translated Emily Wilson ★★★★☆ easy to read, put in context a lot of novels based on greek tales I’ve read in the last couple of years.

Read: An Unnecessarily Women by Rabih Alameddine ★★★☆☆ 📚a strange mix of the Beirut setting and literary references dominated the plot.

Read: The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt ★★★★★ several unreliable narrators, set in the NY art world beyond my ken. Became an engrossing and affecting read. 📚

Read Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto 📚 ★★★★☆ two sad stories of young folk dealling with death.