Tukking about doesn’t wash

I enter a fair few competitions, mostly because I like filling in forms, and recently won a book from Bah! To Cancer's excellent blog (thank you very much!). Because I tend to enter indiscriminately and win a fair bit, I do end up reading quite a wide selection of books. On this occasion I won … Continue reading Tukking about doesn’t wash

Shak-es-pear-e is immense

As part of the Once Upon a Time Book Challenge, this month I dug out my Complete Works (always a pleasure, one of those lucky sods who did the good plays at school and therefore has unending love for The Bard) and re-read A Midsummer Night's Dream. Love that play, and it was very revealing … Continue reading Shak-es-pear-e is immense

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

This month I have become a little obsessed with The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, a series aimed at Young Adults (i.e. older children) but I, a woman in her twenties, enjoyed it immensely. This is a series of six, set in the Stone Ages- before farming, writing or the wheel. At first I was attracted … Continue reading The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

The Millennium Trilogy

Greer once said ‘women will never know how much men hate them’. The Millennium Trilogy seeks to correct this. The books are, in my opinion, an exposé of day-to-day misogyny, as well as violent hatred against women on a grand scale. The male characters who perpetrate the violence or general patriarchal attitudes are either weak … Continue reading The Millennium Trilogy

Oh dear…reading the greats

As part of the Once Upon A Time Reading Challenge I have spent my bank holiday reading Virgil. I know this makes me sound like a right clever swot-girl, but in my defence, it wasn't the original poem in Latin or anything like that, but the first four books of The Aeneid, translated for Penguin … Continue reading Oh dear…reading the greats

The Land of Fire, Ice, annoying volcanos…and a great literary tradition

Now I know that Iceland isn't massively popular at the moment. For one thing, they've just banned lapdancing clubs full stop, so that's another load of stag parties' plans scuppered, then they go an elect a woman as Prime Minister who is not only a massive environmentalist and feminist (you'd have never guessed by the … Continue reading The Land of Fire, Ice, annoying volcanos…and a great literary tradition

Percheron-it

N loves Sci-Fi (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) and fantasy. I don't. The last sci-fi fantasy read N lent me I rather rudely rejected after about 50pages because I literally couldn't tell what was more annoying, the characters or the dialogue between them, which was so contrived and far-fetched not only … Continue reading Percheron-it

Once Upon A Time

OK, so me and N talked last night, and she agrees with me that the Once Upon a Time reading challenge sounds like great fun, and something we as readers should be involved in. The basic premise is that you can decide a challenge from the list on the website to further expand your horizons … Continue reading Once Upon A Time

In Praise of…Robin Jarvis

Sometimes, when browsing my local crack den, I mean second hand bookshop, certain books just reach out and grab me. ‘Buy me’, they cry helplessly as my fingers caress the unbroken spine (how? How do you do this? Seriously I have been reading paperbacks with spines for about twenty years now and have never managed … Continue reading In Praise of…Robin Jarvis

There’s nothing wrong with Marian Keyes

Right, I’m going to say it, I’m just going to come out and say it. No holding back any longer, I am a strong independent woman who has the right to state her own opinion freely and without fear. I really really love Marian Keyes. Not in a lazy-Sunday-afternoon-in-the-bath way, not in a holiday-reading way, … Continue reading There’s nothing wrong with Marian Keyes