01. Two Now or Never Festival events this week: Continue reading
Tag Archives: book group
Helm by Sarah Hall
Helm by Sarah Hall was my book group’s last pick. Our host, the wonderful Katie at Ramona Books, sent out a reminder email which made me laugh –
Helm, or Hmmm? … I’ll be pouring generously for all who managed to wade through.
In summary, it’s a story spanning hundreds of years, told from many perspectives, including that of a most unusual narrator – the wind. More specifically, the wind is the Helm, a strong, cold, northeasterly Foehn wind that blows down the slopes of Cross Fell in Cumbria, England. Helm is the only officially named wind in the British Isles and it is notorious for bringing freezing temperatures, roaring noise, and wrecking damage across the valley. Continue reading
Book vs. Film: Wuthering Heights
Film. Because: Continue reading
Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week
01. They’ve planted a meadow at the Convent. It’s small but lovely. Continue reading
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
It’s been a while since I’ve had a reading experience as visceral as what I had when I read Olga Ravn’s The Wax Child. Continue reading
Three quick reviews
I still have a bunch of reviews to complete from last year… Continue reading
The Happiest Things from Things That Are Making Me Happy
It’s hard to pick out the happiest of happy things but this is my list of 2025 highlights (excluding books – more on those later – and holidays, and I had some amazing ones this year, notably Hobart, Cambodia, New Zealand, and my sinkholes tour). Continue reading
Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week
01. A fabulous night at the Westwood | Kawakubo exhibition at the NGV. The breadth of the work over many decades was astounding. The detail in all of the pieces, but particularly Kawakub’s was incredible (and my daughter who is planning on studying textiles next year was in heaven). Continue reading
A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike
A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike was the latest pick for my book group. Have I mentioned my new book group? I love it. It’s hosted by a local independent book shop and we’ve had enough meetings now that faces are familiar. The format for the evening is basically – mingle; break into chat groups (light and casual at one end of the shop, deep-divers at the other – I hang with the deep-divers); then another little mingle and browse at the end of the evening.
In the mingling bit, one of the other deep-divers asked if I had liked the book (she hadn’t). I said I loved the chapter headings and this was greeted by shrieks of laughter. Yes, that sounds like a harsh review, but I genuinely liked the chapter headings – they were a great snapshot of Pike’s style of humour. Some favourites: Continue reading
I Want Everything by Dominic Amerena
To be honest, I was still dining on details of The Salt Path scandal, when I began I Want Everything by Dominic Amerena. I Want Everything is more a story about a literary mystery rather than a scandal per se, but either way, it’s all in the juicy details (and because of that, I’m loathe to say too much about the plot for fear of giving anything away). Continue reading