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
Tag Archives: Women’s Prize for Fiction
Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week
01. I did a group forest therapy session this week (and dragged a friend along with me) – lots of mindfulness and tree-hugging, but my favourite bit was the time spent creating an ‘artwork’ from things found on the ground. I noticed afterwards, how wholly absorbed I was in the task of arranging the leaves I’d collected. Truly therapeutic. Continue reading
Six Degrees of Separation – from The Bass Rock to Così
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
Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
Trigger warning: miscarriage and death of a child.
One thing that I have observed in my counselling work is that the grief associated with the death of a child is unfathomable, and that it changes families (for generations) in a way that is also unfathomable.
Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ is a deeply tragic story, which examines the yearning and grief experienced by Yejide and her husband, Akin.
I was not strong enough to love when I could lose again, so I held her loosely, with little hope, sure that somehow she too would manage to slip from my grasp. Continue reading
Things that are making me happy this week
01. If it hadn’t been for lockdown, I would never have had Lune perfection delivered to my door early on Saturday morning (or three courses on Monday night from Mr Bianco). Continue reading
Ordinary People by Diana Evans
Ugh. There was not much I liked about Ordinary People by Diana Evans, despite it being one of the books that made my ‘end of year shopping list’. Continue reading
Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts
01. I’ve had so much fun over the last two weeks – Home, I’m Darling (the sets! The costumes!); a long lunch at Moondog (I can highly recommend the avocado dip paired with a Moondog pale ale); Pseudo Echo, Rick Astley, and a-ha in concert at Rockford Winery (a-ha had the top billing but really, it was all Rick), and… Continue reading
Melbourne Writers Festival 2019 – the first bit
Can you see Tayari Jones in the pic above? She looks tiny but I had to show off the magnificent Capitol Theatre, one of the venues for this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival.
I managed four sessions on my first Festival day. The highlights: Continue reading
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Warning, if you loved An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (and that’s everyone, including Barack Obama), look away now.
I am in the minority. Other than the premise, I didn’t like anything about this book. Continue reading
First Love by Gwendoline Riley
Sometimes the most frightening books aren’t found on the ‘thriller’ shelf. Such is the case with Gwendoline Riley’s First Love.
Neve, the narrator, tells the story of her relationships – with her mother and father; with Michael, the man she was involved with in her youth; and with her husband, Edwyn. Each relationship is fraught, each abusive in a different way. Moving back and forth in time, Neve recalls particular moments in each relationship, and the story builds to a dark and unnerving end.
Finding out what you already know. Repeatingly. That’s not sane, is it? And while he might have said that this was how he was, for me it continued to be frightening, panic-making, to hear the low, pleading sounds I’d started making, whenever he was sharp with me. Continue reading