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.
Tag: ★★★★
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.
Read: This Is What Happened by Mick Herron ★★★★☆ 📚
One nasty twist changes this in quite a surprising way. Not quite what I expected from Mick Herron.
Read: For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie ★★★★☆ 📚
The thoughts of two medieval mystics moving through life towards a meeting. Very short alternate sections bring them and their differences to life.
Read The Overstory by Richard Powers ★★★★☆ 📚
Several different stories & ideas around the importance of trees to the world weave together. Some resonated with me more than others.
Many of the ideas are better known now than when the book was published.
The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story
This is a good story, it might change part of your mind, unfortunately like everything else it is more complicated.
Read: The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey ★★★★☆ 📚
Set in the 15th century, a priest tries to solve a “murder”. More about the priest than the murder. Told in reverse it revels his character & the story in an interesting way. Hypocrisy, superstition & morality.
Read: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel ★★★★☆ 📚
Gentle SciFi. Some of the characters from The Glass Hotel appear.
When have we ever believed that the world wasn’t ending?
And
What if it always is the end of the world?
Read: The Drowned by John Banville ★★★★☆ 📚
A who done it, that doesn’t focus of the crime or solution. Follows on from the previous one in a series, nothing is really clear, characters uncertain about most things. Lots of moral ambiguity.
Read: Groundbreakers- The Return of Britain’s Wild Boar by Chantal Lyons ★★★★☆ 📚
The author’s fascination with boar & belief in the good they could do to the environment doesn’t stop her reporting on both points of view. The difference between European acceptance & Uk fears is telling.