Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.

A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman

Why I have it: Prompted by a good review at Savidge Reads and because I loved, loved, loved When God was a Rabbit.

Summary: Marvellous Ways is a ninety-year-old woman who’s waiting for something – she’s not sure what, but she’ll know it when she sees it.

I’m thinking: Yes. Might even activate the first of only-six-book-acquisitions-for-2016.

Small Acts of Disappearance by Fiona Wright

Why I have it: Because it’s one of the ones on the Stella longlist that I’m busting to read.

Summary: Essays describing the author’s affliction with an eating disorder at different stages of her life. It begins –

“I’ll always remember the particular intensity that malnutrition brings on, I know that I still miss it.”

I’m thinking: Yes. Grim but interesting.

The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa

Why I have it: Recommended by Madame Bibi Lophile.

Summary: Three novellas – a teenage girl falls in love with her foster brother as she watches him dive; a young woman records the daily moods of her pregnant sister; and a woman nostalgically visits her old college dormitory, run by a mysterious triple amputee with one leg.

I’m thinking: Yes (taking Madame’s word on it).