Read The Last Days of Kira Mullan by Nicci French ★★★☆☆ 📚
Tricksy whodunit, lots going on. A long story even though I raced through it. Side trip to asylum, with very unpleasant staff. Plenty of detail & red herrings. Gaslighting, mental health& murder turn out to be a good holiday read.
Category Archives: Book
Read The Ecliptic Benjamin Wood ★★★★☆ 📚
Strangely framed story of an abstract artist, from Clydebank, in a Sixties London art world. I was completely absorbed by the central section describing her life & art. The frame, a colony for troubled artists on a Turkish island not quite so much.
read: The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson ★★★★☆ 📚
Probably the most horrible character I’ve read about for a while. Ray, old artist with faded reputation, more talented wife & screwed up children. Lots of fun, though Ray didn’t get the complete metaphorical kicking he deserves.
Read The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller ★★★★☆ 📚
Set in the beautifully described big freeze of 1962. Two odd couples misunderstanding their partners. Echos of the war, class, everything is changing. The book ends with a tangle of unfinished threads.
the flakes skittered, twisted, seemed briefly to rise rather than fall, then fell decisively, filling the darkness with a whispering that had no clear source, no centre. They shut their eyes. They tasted it. Stone-flavoured, the tips of the sky. It filled them with a great excitement of change.
Read The Drop & The List by Mick Herron ★★★★☆ 📚
I enjoyed these more than most of his books, and they fill in some backstory to the slow horses.
Read: Half of a Yellow Sun: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ★★★★★ 📚
First half about fairly privileged folk, second half how the horror of Biafran war played out.
Everything was moving so fast. He was not living his life; life was living him.
Read: Smoke and Whispers by Mick Herron ★★★☆☆
Read: Wild Houses by Colin Barrett ★★★★☆📚
Wild life among the low life. Very Irish. Drugs, crime & kidnap in small town Ireland. Nicely written and paced.
Read Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson ★★★★☆ 📚
Took a while for the strands to come together, each character drawn with detail. Once I was engaged the end came too quick. Slightly confused as I came in at 4th in the series, although I’d watch the tv one long ago.
Read: The Starling: A Biography by Stephen Moss ★★★★☆ 📚
A nice read about one of my favourite creatures. History, behaviour & plenty of murmuration. Lovely old pictures too.