Cathy at 746 Books is hosting the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge again this year. As Cathy explains, it’s the most relaxed reading challenge you’ll participate in (swap books out, change your target, do whatever). The challenge is straightforward – read the books between June 1st and September 1st. 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.
This month I begin with the book that I ended my last #6degrees chain with – The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison. 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
Proving that I don’t actually care about my never-really-shrinking-TBR-list is this list of new releases that are on my radar for 2024. Continue reading
I did away with ‘top tens’ a few years ago, and instead I finish the reading year with a recap of the books that are still speaking to me (less about four and five-star ratings, more about what has stuck). Continue reading
Here I was thinking Nonfiction November wasn’t happening this year… But it is! With a bunch of new hosts.
It kicks off with My Year in Nonfiction, hosted by Heather at Based on a True Story. Continue reading
When it comes to break-ups, I’m of the ‘only-break-is-a-clean-break’ variety. I’ve never got back with someone I’ve broken up with, and nor do I attempt to ‘stay friends’. And perhaps because these break-ups were all a very, very long time ago, I have zero curiosity about ‘where are they now?’.
I would not have been a good candidate as the main character of Sloane Crosley’s latest work of fiction, Cult Classic, a novel that centres on Lola, a New Yorker who runs into a former boyfriend. And then another. And . . . another. Lola can’t dismiss these meetings as coincidence, and begins to reflect on the qualities of her current relationship in comparison with those of her past.
Continue reading
I was fortunate to see Sloane Crosley earlier this year (speaking about her latest novel, Cult Classic, which I’ve read but yet to review… I’m very behind on reviews). Anyway, she was as funny in real life as she is on the page, and her second essay collection, Look Alive Out There, confirms exactly how funny she is on the page.
Crosley’s humour is self-deprecating, and relies on the very particular situations she has found herself in (as opposed to taking shots at the world in general). Although I found the essays to be of a consistent standard (high), there were standouts. A Dog Named Humphrey recalls Crosley’s guest appearance on Gossip Girl (best show, and I will not be taking questions at this time); Up the Down Volcano, about a poorly planned adventure in Ecuador; and Cinema of the Confined, which focuses on her diagnosis with Ménière’s disease, which she describes as something that ‘…sounds like a pastry but is the opposite of pastry…’. Her doctor says,
“I’m doubtful you’ll go deaf deaf.”
I didn’t want to go any number of deafs.
“It could be worse,” he said. “It could be cancer.”
This was not the first time Dr. Goldfinger suggested I appreciate my place on the mortality spectrum… The expression doesn’t go: “At least you have some portion of your health.” Continue reading
Just to be clear, in the past, I’ve never had two tropical island holidays within one year (or even two, three, four or five years!) and I’m unlikely to be so lucky again… but 2023 has delivered ten days in Hawaii and a week in Fiji. Continue reading
Cathy at 746 Books is hosting the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge again this year. As Cathy explains, it’s the most relaxed reading challenge you’ll participate in (swap books out, change your target, do whatever). The challenge is straightforward – read twenty books between June 1st and September 1st. Continue reading