Six Degrees of Separation – from Passages to Soundings

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with Barbara Taylor Bradford, Bruce Springsteen, Doreen Cunningham, Elspeth Muir, essays, Gail Sheehy, Jenny Valentish, Leslie Jamison, memoir, Six Degrees of Separation March 4, 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 →

Six Degrees of Separation – from The Naked Chef to The Recovering

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with cooking, Elizabeth McCracken, Eowyn Ivey, gin, Hetty McKinnon, Jamie Oliver, Leslie Jamison, memoir, Robert Putman, Six Degrees of Separation November 5, 2022

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 →

Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with 2022, author talk, COVID-19, gin, Leslie Jamison, re-read, television, twitter October 9, 2022

01. Dinner at Solarace by Chef David. Apart from the actual space being over-the-top fabulous, the standouts were cod with tomato, lychee and avocado fancy bits; abalone tempura that was out of this world; and a wild rice salad that was so good I just wanted to put my face in the bowl (which I couldn’t do because we were with friends and standards and whatnot). Continue reading →

Make it Scream, Make it Burn by Leslie Jamison

Posted by Kate W in Non-fiction and tagged with 2021, American, book review, Leslie Jamison, memoir, nonfiction, reading challenge, review February 19, 2021

There were stories in Leslie Jamison’s first essay collection, The Empathy Exams, that I still think about more than five years after reading them. And it’s remarkable how regularly I refer others to particular essays written by Jamison. I suspect it will be the same with her latest collection, Make it Scream, Make it Burn.

So which particular essays will I be pressing on people, and why? Continue reading →

Sample Saturday – three nonfiction picks

Posted by Kate W in Non-fiction, Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with Julia Baird, Kate Leaver, Leslie Jamison, Lynn Sherr, nonfiction, Sample Saturday August 29, 2020

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 →

Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts, Leslie Jamison, Lisa Taddeo, music, Siri Hustvedt, Wheeler Centre March 12, 2020

01. We went to the cricket for International Women’s Day. It was spectacular (the result; being part of such a big crowd for a women’s sporting event; and Katy Perry and her dancing cricket bats). Continue reading →

I’m waiting for… 2019 edition

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with 2019, Angela Savage, Carrie Tiffany, Catherine Knepper, Christos Tsiolkas, Dani Shapiro, David Nicholls, Deborah Levy, Elizabeth Gilbert, Elizabeth McCracken, Elizabeth Strout, Elliot Perlman, Emily Nussbaum, Erin Somers, Halle Butler, Heather Rose, Heidi Diehl, Helen Oyeyemi, Ian McEwan, Jen Beagin, Jennifer Down, Leanne Shapton, Leslie Jamison, Lindsay Stern, Mary Laura Philpott, Maylis de Kerangal, Naja Marie Aidt, Nora McInerny, Polly Rosenwaike, Siri Hustvedt, Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Tessa Hadley, TJ Stimson, Yara Zgheib January 14, 2019

Seems there’s lots of good reading to be done this year (have I ever started a year not thinking the same…? No). Continue reading →

A Year of Sample Saturdays 2018

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with Amy Kaufman, Caitriona Lally, Chloe Benjamin, Craig Brown, Gwendoline Riley, Hermione Hoby, Jon Ronson, Kristen Iskandrian, Laura Freeman, Leslie Jamison, Ottessa Moshfegh, Patricia Lockwood, Roger Deakin, Rose Tremain, Sample Saturday, Tayari Jones December 22, 2018

I’ve read 93 Kindle samples this year – downloading sample chapters is better than impulse buying books… I think. Of the 93 I’ve read, I’ve said ‘yes’ to 44. Of those that I’ve said yes to, five I now own and one I’ve read. Continue reading →

The Top 50 from the Best Books of 2018 List of Lists

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with 2018, A. J. Finn, Akwaeke Emezi, Andrew Roberts, book list, Chloe Benjamin, Curtis Sittenfeld, David Sedaris, Denis Johnson, Esi Edugyan, Gary Shteyngart, Idra Novey, Kristin Hannah, Lauren Groff, Leïla Slimani, Leslie Jamison, Ling Ma, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Lisa Halliday, Luis Alberto Urrea, Madeline Miller, Meg Wolitzer, Melissa Broder, Michael Ondaatje, Michelle Obama, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Olga Tokarczuk, Olivia Laing, Ottessa Moshfegh, Pat Barker, Patrick deWitt, R. O. Kwon, Rachel Cusk, Rachel Kushner, Rebecca Makkai, Richard Powers, Rumaan Alam, Sally Rooney, Sarah Perry, Sayaka Murata, Sheila Heti, Shobha Rao, Sigrid Nunez, Susan Orlean, Tara Westover, Tayari Jones, Tommy Orange, William Trevor, Zadie Smith, Zora Neale Hurston December 9, 2018

This is my annual community service to book-bloggers – a list of the books that appear most frequently on all of the lists (37 of them) I listed on Best Books of 2018 – A List of Lists.

Here it is, the 2018 Commonly-Agreed-by-the-People-Who-Publish-Best-of-2018-Book-Lists-Before-December-31 top 50 books. Continue reading →

Nonfiction November – Be the Expert

Posted by Kate W in Non-fiction and tagged with Cheryl Strayed, Cris Beam, Leslie Jamison, Mari Andrew, nonfiction, Paul Bloom November 12, 2018

Put your ‘expert’ hat on, it’s Week 3 of Nonfiction November.

This week, JulzReads asks us to Be The Expert/ Ask the Expert/ Become the Expert – essentially, share a bunch of books on a particular topic. My topic is ’empathy’. Continue reading →