Writing and reviews with an environmental, science fiction, and fantasy touch
‘Kill the Black One First’ was a phrase shouted by rioters at Brixton as the police officers formed a barrier. This memoir from Michael Fuller is a powerful and thought-provoking book. I’m very grateful to the publishers and Net-galley for the
Sassinak was listed for one of the Space Opera Group’s books of the month for April, and unusually I got it read within the timescale. It’s another for my SpaceTime Reading Challenge – which seems to be going rather well
The Porpoise was published Thursday 9th May. The publisher Vintage, allowed me an ARC via Net-Galley. The only work I’ve read by Mark Haddon was the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, so I wondered how this (adult)
The Stone Circle came out in February in the UK, and for once I hadn’t pre-ordered it. So when I was on NetGalley’s original site by accident and saw it on offer for readers, I jumped at the chance. This
Heiða is my book for R for Review, which is my regular Saturday topic. I’m breaking out of my A to Z Challenge Flashbacks to bring you a review of a fascinating book published on Thursday (18th April). Thank you,
Doggerland relates to the land under the North Sea, off the coast of East Anglia, where the Dogger Bank forms a great sand spit of relatively shallow water, sometimes exposed at low tide. Once there was a vast tract of
Boy X sang to me from the teen shelf of my library bus. I thought of all those years I miss the letter X off my Alphabet reading challenge. As I walked home with it, I realised I’m not doing
Revelation Space was the December book of the month for the Space Opera Group on Goodreads. Yes, I’m a bit late reading it, due to my library not stocking it, even thought they had the second in the series in.
A Man Called Ove was my (physical) bookclub’s read for February. I’d heard of it, and thought it was on my TBR, but it wasn’t. Maybe I’d rejected it after going down the TBR hole once upon a time. A
Dining out with the Gas Giants is the third in a wonderful series by Clare O’Beara. I started with the second, loved it, and added the first one last year. I don’t think there’s any problem with that approach. The
The Age of Misadventure is the second novel by Judy Leigh. HarperCollins, the publishers, offered me an ARC through Netgalley, since I’d reviewed A Grand Old Time during last year’s #AtoZChallenge and loved it. Read on to find out what I thought of
Children of Time was January’s Book of the Month for the Space Opera Group on Goodreads. It sounded really interesting, and since I’d finished my own series for the time being, I hoped to read some scifi for a change
Rebel of the Sands first caught my attention because of its gorgeous cover. I think I added it to my list pretty quickly. Then it was nominated in the Goodreads Book of the Year 2016, and I voted for it
Tony Laplume blogs from A to Z in April. One year he wrote a set of 26 character sketches which became a novella. And so it came to pass that it arrived in my hands to review as part of
A Pinch of Magic is new release, which I received from the publisher via Net-Galley. The blurb looked interesting, although I disliked all the gushing quotes from other authors included on Goodreads – which I have left out here. For
The Body in the Snow by Christoph Fischer was the last book I read in 2018, giving me the major achievement of completing my Mount TBR target of 36 books. I’ve missed this by two in the last two years.
Another roundup! Some quickies to round off four more books I read and hadn’t reviewed… two library spur-of-the-moment choices and two that have been sitting in my kindle for a while – four years each. I don’t like doing them
The decision on which book to pick for my Book of the Year was hard. I tried to get you involved with a vote, but that didn’t help much, since only four votes were cast. But it did help me
A Little History of British Gardening was a Christmas present last year, no, the year before now. I started reading in October. I finally finished it on Boxing Day. It is much longer than expected, with much smaller typeface than
Tourist Trap is a science fiction adventure by Sue Ann Bowling, who was one of my blogging friends in Alaska. I’ve been meaning to read it for a few years now, after reading Homecoming just after Sue Ann died, and
Outside is a book I received from the publisher via Net-galley. This review reflects my own opinions. Outside will be published on Thursday, 3rd January. I expect it’s going to be a big hit. Outside by Sarah Ann Juckes Here’s
A Maigret Christmas came from the publisher via Net-Galley. I was excited to see, when I registered it on Goodreads, that it said ‘A Maigret Christmas and other stories‘. Indeed I saw the paperback of this title in Waterstones bookstores this
Book of the Year 2018 – it’s my book of the year, and I don’t expect many of them will feature on other people’s seasonal lists. These are the books I rated most highly out of those I read in
Hello, is this planet Earth? is Tim Peake’s curated collection of photographs from his six months on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2015-16. You probably followed it with me, or with more official sources, especially if you’re British! I
Several Middle Grade books were languishing without reviews when I last checked. To my surprise, one of those I read in the spring, and gave five stars to it. I wonder how that happened. The first two of these were