Six Degrees of Separation – from Beach Read to Elizabeth Finch

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with 2023, campus-lit, Ceridwen Dovey, Donna Tartt, Emily Henry, grief-lit, Hernan Diaz, Isobel Beech, Julian Barnes, Six Degrees of Separation, Victoria Hannan January 7, 2023

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 →

My Latest Listens

Posted by Kate W in Fiction, Non-fiction and tagged with 2022, American, audiobook, book review, British, fiction, grief-lit, Julian Barnes, Kiley Reid, memoir, nonfiction, review, Sarah Hughes November 18, 2022

Holding Tight, Letting Go by Sarah Hughes Continue reading →

Sample Saturday – ballooning, DNA, and the Berlin Wall

Posted by Kate W in Non-fiction, Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with Dani Shapiro, German, grief-lit, historical, Julian Barnes, memoir, Nina Willner, nonfiction, Sample Saturday July 10, 2021

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. Continue reading →

Short reviews of four short books

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with 2017, American, Anne Tyler, art, book review, British, fiction, historical, Jeanette Winterson, Julian Barnes, Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold, Margaret Atwood, review, Sabahattin Ali, Tracy Chevalier, translated, Turkish, William Shakespeare December 28, 2017

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes Continue reading →

Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts

Posted by Kate W in Book vs Film, Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts, Dave Eggers, Deborah Moggach, film, gin, Herman Koch, Julian Barnes, Margaret Atwood, movie, music February 16, 2017

bruce-hanging-rock-2017

01. Bruce last week at Hanging Rock. It was a perfect night. Continue reading →

Six Degrees of Separation – from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with eighties, Enid Blyton, Hadley Freeman, Julian Barnes, Pamela Erens, Rebecca Harrington, Six Degrees of Separation, Stieg Larsson January 7, 2017

six-degrees-girl-with-dragon-tattoo

It’s time for #6Degrees, and it’s soooo easy to play – join us!

This month’s chain begins with Stieg Larsson’s Nordic thriller, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (thanks to Maria Helena for this suggestion). I haven’t read this book and when looking for clues to start my chain, I came across Paul’s review on Goodreads. Paul is possibly my favourite Goodreads reviewer – although our opinions don’t always match, he never fails to make me laugh. And I really laughed when I read his one-star take on The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes – Continue reading →

The Top 36 from the Best Books of 2016 List of Lists

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with 2016, Adam Haslett, Affinity Konar, Alexander Chee, Amor Towles, Ann Patchett, Annie Proulx, book list, Brit Bennett, C. E. Morgan, Claire Louise Bennett, Colson Whitehead, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, David Szalay, Deborah Levy, Don DeLillo, Elizabeth Strout, Emma Cline, Garth Greenwell, Han Kang, Helen Oyeyemi, Jacqueline Woodson, Jade Chang, Jonathan Safran Foer, Julian Barnes, Karan Mahajan, Louise Erdrich, Madeleine Thien, Maria Semple, Matthew Desmond, Michael Chabon, Nathan Hill, Paul Kalanithi, Paulette Jiles, Stephanie Danler, Zadie Smith December 7, 2016

best-books-2016

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 →

Six Degrees of Separation – from Midnight’s Children to Sisterland

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with Andrew Hodges, Ann Morgan, Curtis Sittenfeld, fiction, film, Julian Barnes, movie, nonfiction, Salman Rushdie, Six Degrees of Separation, Stephen Hawking July 2, 2016

six-degrees-midnights-children

It’s time for #6Degrees – join in! Link up! Get into it!

We begin this month with Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (as picked by Jenny). I haven’t read it but my husband has – this is significant because my husband rarely reads novels. Continue reading →

Top Ten Books I’ve Recently Added To My TBR

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with Anna Hope, Charles Bock, Curtis Sittenfeld, Julian Barnes, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Kit de Waal, Kristopher Jansma, Molly Prentiss, TBR, Thomas Christopher Greene, Tim Parks, Top Ten Tuesday January 19, 2016

top-ten-tuesday-new-releases-2016

2016, the year of buying no books, does not mean the year of no new releases for me. Bless you and your generosity, publishers.

Here are ten ARCs hovering near the top of my staggering TBR stack –

1. Why We Came to the City by Kristopher Jansma – twentysomethings in New York. Brilliant. Continue reading →