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.
This week, all three books (and all are novellas) were mentioned in this interview with author Austin Duffy (whose book, The Night Interns, I enjoyed). Continue reading
You’ll need to lock in early to Happiness and Love, in order to get with Zoe Dubno’s style. But it is absolutely worth your initial effort.
First to the style: It is pure stream-of-consciousness. There are no paragraphs and no chapter breaks – start reading at page one and keep going until you hit the end (page 267), at which point, you are well and truly feeling all the things the novel’s narrator if feeling (annoyed, aggrieved, exhausted, amused, enlightened, relieved). Continue reading
There are many things to recommend Yiyun Li’s novel, The Book of Goose. For me, it started with the cover (published by 4th Estate in Australia) – what appears to be a section from an Old Masters painting, with a pop of neon. The contrast was arresting and I bought the book, knowing nothing about it or the author. Yep, raw-dogging my book-buying.
In brief, it’s the story of Agnès and her best friend, Fabienne. As children in a postwar provisional French town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves. Fabienne, the bolder of the two, hatches a plan to create some excitement in their lives, and the result changes everything for Agnès.
How do I measure Fabienne’s presence in my life – by the years we were together, or by the years we have been apart, her shadow elongating as time goes by, always touching me? Continue reading
Yes, these lists are just someone’s opinion… yes, these lists are often biased… yes, these lists are a dime a dozen… But it doesn’t mean they’re not fun. And the NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list, that’s been revealed bit-by-bit this week has provided excellent bookish click-bait. Continue reading
It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up. Continue reading
01. Hooray! All the main bits of my trip to Hawaii are booked (now it’s just the really fun stuff to organise – restaurants, snorkeling, diving, and some sightseeing). Continue reading
01. Morning walk was accidentally interrupted by breakfast at Cumulus Inc. (BTW that’s a smoked trout frittata with crème fraiche, and madeleines with bergamot curd in the background). Continue reading
01. MTC’s production of As You Like It – such a joyful note to end the theatre year on. Continue reading
At the end of a happy hour, one of two things happen – the party carries on, or everyone goes home. Halfway through Marlowe Granados’s debut novel, Happy Hour, I was in two minds – stay or go? Continue reading
These books deserve thorough reviews but I also really want to be done with 2020. So, for the sake of completeness, quick reviews of the books I read in November and December last year – Continue reading