
Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga Continue reading

Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga Continue reading
Small Rain by Garth Greenwell is one of the most creative books I’ve read this year. Not creative in that it plays with style or structure, but simply for its somehow wholly engaging focus on the micro detail (and in doing so, tells a macro story).
What a strange thing a body is, I thought, how eerie to be filled with blood and covered with hair, to be a machine any part of which might fail; and how strange to have hated it so much, when it had always been so serviceable, when it had done more or less everything I had needed until now, when for more than forty years it had worked so well. Poor body, I thought again, looking down on it. I had hated it so much and been so ashamed and I might have loved it instead. Continue reading

01. Going out for a sandwich is one of my favourite things – delicious fillings that I know I wouldn’t make at home (or I would, but then I’d be eating the same sandwich every day for a fortnight), and equally delicious breads (again, I just want two slices, not a whole loaf). I tend to go to the same places but for 2025 there is a new Sandwich Schedule – trying a new place, once a month, with a friend who understands good sandwiches.
First up, Warkop in Richmond. The advantage of going with a friend is sharing – we split the the Beef Brisket (toasted rye bread, with pickles and rendang sauce) and the Fried Chicken (which included shredded kohlrabi, pickles and tangy bazzinga sauce. I don’t know what’s in bazzinga sauce but it was next level delicious). Continue reading

Presenting the 2024 Commonly-Agreed-by-the-People-Who-Publish-Best-of-2024-Book-Lists-Before-December-31 top 60 books.
(This is my annual community service to book-bloggers – a list of the books that appear most frequently on the 55 lists that I listed on Best Books of 2024 – A List of Lists – enjoy!). Continue reading

Presenting the 2020 Commonly-Agreed-by-the-People-Who-Publish-Best-of-2020-Book-Lists-Before-December-31 top 50 books. Continue reading

This is my community service to book bloggers – a list of the books that appear most frequently on all of the lists I listed on Best Books of 2016 – A List of Lists. So before I have to write the word ‘list’ again, here it is, the 2016 Commonly-Agreed-by-the-People-Who-Publish-Best-of-2016-Book-Lists-Before-December-31 top 36 books. Continue reading

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.
All three samples this week came from the Best Fiction of 2016 list, according to Publishers Weekly. Continue reading