Read: The Lost Wife by Susanna Moore ★★★★☆ 📚
Short but engaging fiction based on a real life memoir. Settlers & Sioux clash in 1855. The narrator, Sarah, has no self pity despite a troubled life. Felt like a realistic picture of the times both filthy & surprising. Characters are complex.
Kind: Notes
short content: a post or status update with just plain content and typically without a title
Doune Hill & Beinn Eich via Glen Mollochan
Overcast day with a threat of rain later.
Clouds low, on the top of the hill a few times. Quite a breeze higher up.
Quiet, no one else on the hill.
Not much in the way of wildlife, a few deer & the odd raven croak.
Notes & photos: walkmap
Read: Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin ★★★☆☆ 📚
I am reading more Rankin, not necessarily in the right order. This early Rebus is a wee bit different than the later versions. A nicely tangled plot woven across Edinburgh society from junkies to the higher reaches. Corruption all the way.
I had a walk round Ardmore Yesterday. From the top left: Red-tailed bee on knapweed, robin, heron, osprey, map of where whotos were taken, white butterfly, two little egrets, two little egrets again, meadow brown butterfly. I got to watch the osprey and egrets fishing for a while.
Read: Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah ★★★☆☆ 📚
Dystopia, prisoners fight to the death. Illuminating prisons & racism. Parallels with sport, advertising & reality TV. Quite a page turner, too much on weapons, technical details etc. great footnotes mix fact & fiction.
Read: The Secret Hours by Mick Herron ★★★★☆ 📚
I actually think I enjoyed this more than the Slow Horses books. There was some amusing civil service & government committee scenes, less over the top characters. Nice unobtrusive links to Slow Horses too.
Read: The Sun Walks Down by Fiona Mcfarlane ★★★★★ 📚
A lost boy in the Australian outback at the end of the 19th century. The many searchers & their tangled involvement with each other, the land & the landscape weave in & out of the story. Great detail about each without losing momentum.
This was the time of day when the sun touched the red hill and the gods came creeping out of it—out of the sun. They parted the branches of the cypress tree and stepped with care over the rocks at the top of the hill. They ran like water down the hill, and their footsteps were like water around the corners of the house.
June Noted, from this idea, started here. One thing a day noticed and noted. Rather late on recording.
Read: Big Girl, Small Town by Michelle Gallen ★★★★☆ 📚
Majella is autistic but might not know it. Her mum is a hopeless alcoholic, her dad one of Northern Ireland’s disappeared. Her uncle had blown himself up & her grannie has just been murdered. Her house mostly filthy, her town pretty horrible too. This account of her likes & dislikes over a few days felt quite unpleasant to start with but grew on me. Not a lot of plot, but Majella is a fascinating & engaging character.
Read: Long Island by Colm Tóibín ★★★★★ 📚
Quiet, subtle and thrilling. Characters fail to communicate, wait too long for the right moment and miss and hit opportunities.