annethology
  • Home
    • About Annethology
    • About me >
      • A little more about me
    • About my books
    • Author talks
    • Contact me
    • Forthcoming events
    • World Mental Health Day
    • Privacy
    • Sign up for my newsletter
  • First two novels
    • Sugar and Snails >
      • Acknowledgements
      • Blog tour, Q&A's and feature articles >
        • Birthday blog tour
        • S&S on tour 2022
      • Early endorsements
      • Events >
        • Launch photos
        • Launch party videos
      • in pictures
      • Media
      • If you've read the book
      • Polari
      • Reading group questions
      • Reviews
      • In the media
    • Underneath >
      • Endorsements and reviews
      • Launch party and events
      • Pictures
      • Questions for book groups
      • The stories underneath the novel
  • Matilda Windsor series
    • The accidental series
    • Matilda Windsor >
      • What readers say
      • For book groups
      • Interviews, articles and features
      • Matty on the move
      • Who were you in 1990?
      • Asylum lit
      • Matilda Windsor media
    • Stolen Summers >
      • Stolen Summers reviews
    • Lyrics for the Loved Ones
  • Short stories
    • Somebody’s Daughter
    • Becoming Someone (anthology) >
      • Becoming Someone (video readings)
      • Becoming Someone reviews
      • Becoming Someone online book chat
    • Print and downloads
    • Read it online
    • Quick reads
  • Free ebook
  • Annecdotal
    • Annecdotal blog
    • Annecdotal Press
    • Articles >
      • Print journalism
      • Where psychology meets fiction
    • Fictional therapists
    • Reading and reviews >
      • Reviews A to H
      • Reviews I to M
      • Reviews N to Z
      • Nonfiction
      • Themed quotes
      • Reading around the world
  • Shop
    • Inspired Quill (my publisher)
    • Bookshop.org (affiliate link)
    • Amazon UK
    • Amazon US
    • books2read
  • Main site

Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Mothering her mother: Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

31/3/2016

8 Comments

 
Picture
Sofia and her mother, Rose, are spending the summer of 2015 in Almería. Although Sofia spends the day on the beach, this is no holiday. For much of Sofia’s life, certainly from the age of five when her Greek father moved on, Rose has suffered from a mysterious illness which renders her intermittently unable to walk. They have remortgaged Rose’s house in London and come to Spain in search of a cure at the unconventional Gómez Clinic.

Read More
8 Comments

11 reasons I might give up on a novel #amreading

28/3/2016

25 Comments

 
Picture
As I’ve mentioned before, I was surprised when a literary agent who turned down my debut novel did so because the sample I’d sent her was written in the first person present tense. But if you read for a living, being familiar with your preferences and prejudices can save a lot of time. After all, we can’t all appreciate the same thing. Reading for reviews is helping me clarify my own likes and dislikes although, despite the title of this post, a sense of accountability to publishers who’ve provided me a free copy and a belief in the value of diversity will see me rarely abandoning a book. (I think I ditched three out of well over 100 books I read last year.) But since “11 reasons I don’t want to read your book” has a nasty ring to it, for the purposes of this post I’m extending the definition of “abandon” to encompass books I’m not even tempted to start. Practical or blinkered, considered or arbitrary, undoubtedly contradictory, in reverse order of annoyingness, these are my 11 reasons I won’t give a novel my time.


Read More
25 Comments

A musical adventure: The Song Collector by Natasha Solomons

25/3/2016

8 Comments

 
Picture
The celebrated composer Harry Fox-Talbot, or Fox to his friends, is grieving for his wife, Edie, a singer who rose to prominence cheering the troops during the Second World War. He’s lost interest in music until, quite by chance, his grandson, Robin, discovers the piano. The four-year-old turns out to be a musical prodigy and, by nurturing his development, Fox gradually re-engages with life.



Read More
8 Comments

Sand: Gold Fame Citrus & My Own Beach Memories

22/3/2016

12 Comments

 
There’s no rain in California. The swimming pools that graced the homes of the beautiful people are nothing but rubbish tips, no-one can wash and drinking water is rationed. Just beyond Los Angeles, civilisation lies buried under mountains of moving sand. Most people have been evacuated to the camps out East; those who remain take their chances in this lawless environment. It’s not only the sun that is harsh.
Picture

Read More
12 Comments

Nostalgia & Reminiscence: Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb & Just One

20/3/2016

8 Comments

 
Picture
Mihály is on honeymoon in Italy when he bumps into János, an old school friend who, when they last met in London, stole his gold watch. The chance encounter throws up memories of his youth, an extended adolescence of irresponsibility under the influence of the charismatic Tamás, and his sister, Éva. The following day, en route to Rome with his wife, he steps down from the train to grab a coffee. Inadvertently – or perhaps with unconscious intention – he boards the wrong train just as it’s pulling out of the station. Disembarking in Perugia, he realises that he’s been given the perfect opportunity to separate from his wife.

Read More
8 Comments

The Voyage of the Dolphin by Kevin Smith & other St Patrick’s Day reads

17/3/2016

6 Comments

 
It’s almost Spring, 1916, and the aristocratic semi-illiterate Hugh Fitzmaurice risks being sent down from Trinity College, Dublin, for his failure to appreciate that university students are required to study in addition to swanning around the town. The Senior Dean has a proposition that might just save him from joining his compatriots in the trenches: his kinship with the celebrated Antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, makes him the ideal leader of a pseudoscientific expedition to the Arctic to bring back the bones of an Irish giant. Not the type to let his lack of seafaring experience stand in the way of an adventure, Fitzmaurice recruits his two friends, and his pet iguana, to join him.
Picture

Read More
6 Comments

Man and monster: Trencherman by Eben Venter

15/3/2016

4 Comments

 
Picture
Marlouw’s sister, Heleen, is worried. When her son, Koert, first went to visit his parents’ homeland in the Bloemfontein region of South Africa, he phoned or emailed almost every day, but now she hasn’t heard from him for weeks, and his last message was mostly gobbledygook. Reluctantly, but not without his own personal agenda, Marlouw agrees to travel from his home in Melbourne to try and find his nephew. Even if it weren’t for his club foot, the journey would be a difficult one in a country where AIDS is rife, the streets are lined with the hungry and desperate, and the infrastructure has collapsed.

Read More
4 Comments

Parallel Narratives: The Living by Anjali Joseph & When We Were Alive by CJ Fisher

11/3/2016

9 Comments

 
With the echos of each other in the titles, I couldn’t resist pairing these two novels published this month, both involving parallel narratives. As I’m playing with a similar structure in my current WIP, I’m also interested in what these novels can teach us about a form that’s more difficult to pull off than we might think.

Picture
Picture

Read More
9 Comments

Struggle without Stupidity: Jihadi by Yusuf Toropov

9/3/2016

6 Comments

 
Picture
Since childhood, Thelonius Liddell has striven for excellence in an attempt to forget the trauma of seeing his father murder his mother. At a university careers day, he’s recruited into the US intelligence agency by Becky Firestone, the somewhat disturbed daughter of the director whom Thelonius eventually marries. When we first meet Liddell he’s already a dead man, writing his memoir in the ten metre square cell in the clandestine containment unit he calls The Beige Motel. Now preferring the name Ali, he was converted to Islam by his wizened cellmate in a squalid (presumably Iraqi) prison, where he is accused of the murder of a man and his young daughter and of desecrating the Koran. His conversion was part of a deal brokered by a young woman, Fatima, but, like almost everything else in this multi-layered thriller about the war on terror, we have to keep on turning the pages to uncover the truth. While I’m inclined to agree that, as Fatima says, Stupidity has taken over the process of government in both countries, there’s nothing stupid in this complex tale of compromised morality and the fragility of the human mind.


Read More
6 Comments

Libraries, Fictional Heroines and International Women

7/3/2016

18 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Who doesn’t love a blog poll? This time last year, I asked you to choose between five fictional heroines to mark International Women’s Day, and I enjoyed it so much I thought I’d have another bash, especially when I realised that World Book Day falls only a few days before International Women’s. I’ll admit that I haven’t ploughed systematically through a whole twelve months of reviews to select my shortlist, but I think this year’s five are a good representation of the range of heroic female characters we might encounter on the page. I’m presenting them in alphabetical order and, remember, it you don’t have to have read the books, or even the reviews, to vote.


Read More
18 Comments

All for Nothing & When the Doves Disappeared

5/3/2016

6 Comments

 
My historical education – or should that be education about history? – continues courtesy of a couple of powerful novels about the Second World War and its aftermath along the eastern front.
Picture
Picture

Read More
6 Comments

Women’s Lives: Where Love Begins by Judith Hermann & Vertigo by Joanna Walsh

3/3/2016

4 Comments

 
Stand by for two haunting short books published in the UK today about different facets of the lives of women.
Picture
Picture

Read More
4 Comments

Three debut novels on the lives of preteen girls

1/3/2016

10 Comments

 
I’ve partnered these three debut novels because they’re all about preteen girls (although, in the third, Under the Udala Trees, our heroine does grow up to become a mother herself). Set in Britain, China and Nigeria they feature loneliness, religion and burgeoning sexuality with the latter two against the backdrop of war.
Picture
Picture
Picture

Read More
10 Comments
    Picture
    Free ebook: click the image to claim yours.
    Picture
    Available now
    Picture
    The poignant prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home
    Picture
    Find a review
    Picture
    Fictional therapists
    Picture
    Picture
    About Anne Goodwin
    Picture
    My published books
    entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice
    Picture
    My third novel, published May 2021
    Picture
    My debut novel shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize
    Picture
    Picture
    My second novel published May 2017.
    Picture
    Short stories on the theme of identity published 2018
    Anne Goodwin's books on Goodreads
    Sugar and Snails Sugar and Snails
    reviews: 32
    ratings: 52 (avg rating 4.21)

    Underneath Underneath
    reviews: 24
    ratings: 60 (avg rating 3.17)

    Becoming Someone Becoming Someone
    reviews: 8
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.56)

    GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4 GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4
    reviews: 4
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.44)

    The Best of Fiction on the Web The Best of Fiction on the Web
    reviews: 3
    ratings: 3 (avg rating 4.67)

    2022 Reading Challenge

    2022 Reading Challenge
    Anne has read 2 books toward their goal of 100 books.
    hide
    2 of 100 (2%)
    view books
    Picture
    Annecdotal is where real life brushes up against the fictional.  
    Picture
    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
    reader, writer,

    slug-slayer, tramper of moors, 
    recovering psychologist, 
    struggling soprano, 
    author of three fiction books.

    LATEST POSTS HERE
    I don't post to a schedule, but average  around ten reviews a month (see here for an alphabetical list), 
    some linked to a weekly flash fiction, plus posts on my WIPs and published books.  

    Your comments are welcome any time any where.

    Get new posts direct to your inbox ...

    Enter your email address:

    or click here …

    RSS Feed


    Picture

    Tweets by @Annecdotist
    Picture
    New short story, “My Dirty Weekend”
    Picture
    Let’s keep in touch – subscribe to my newsletter
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Popular posts

    • Compassion: something we all need
    • Do spoilers spoil?
    • How to create a convincing fictional therapist
    • Instructions for a novel
    • Looking at difference, embracing diversity
    • Never let me go: the dilemma of lending books
    • On loving, hating and writers’ block
      On Pop, Pirates and Plagiarism
    • READIN' for HER reviews
    • Relishing the cuts
    • The fast first draft
    • The tragedy of obedience
    • Writers and therapy: a love-hate relationship?

    Categories/Tags

    All
    Animals
    Annecdotist Hosts
    Annecdotist On Tour
    Articles
    Attachment Theory
    Author Interviews
    Becoming Someone
    Being A Writer
    Blogging
    Bodies
    Body
    Bookbirthday
    Books For Writers
    Bookshops
    CB Book Group
    Character
    Childhood
    Christmas
    Classics
    Climate Crisis
    Coming Of Age
    Counsellors Cafe
    Creative Writing Industry
    Creativity
    Cumbria
    Debut Novels
    Disability
    Editing
    Emotion
    Ethics
    Ethis
    Family
    Feedback And Critiques
    Fictional Psychologists & Therapists
    Food
    Friendship
    Futuristic
    Gender
    Genre
    Getting Published
    Giveaways
    Good Enough
    Grammar
    Gratitude
    Group/organisational Dynamics
    Hero’s Journey
    History
    Humour
    Identity
    Illness
    Independent Presses
    Institutions
    International Commemorative Day
    Jane Eyre
    Kidney Disease
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Live Events
    Lyrics For The Loved Ones
    Marketing
    Matilda Windsor
    Memoir
    Memory
    Mental Health
    Microfiction
    Motivation
    Music
    MW Prequel
    Names
    Narrative Voice
    Nature / Gardening
    Networking
    Newcastle
    Nonfiction
    Nottingham
    Novels
    Pandemic
    Peak District
    Perfect Match
    Poetry
    Point Of View
    Politics
    Politics Current Affairs
    Presentation
    Privacy
    Prizes
    Psychoanalytic Theory
    Psychology
    Psycholoists Write
    Psychotherapy
    Race
    Racism
    Rants
    Reading
    Real Vs Imaginary
    Religion
    Repetitive Strain Injury
    Research
    Reviewing
    Romance
    Satire
    Second Novels
    Settings
    Sex
    Shakespeare
    Short Stories General
    Short Stories My Published
    Short Stories Others'
    Siblings
    Snowflake
    Somebody's Daughter
    Stolen Summers
    Storytelling
    Structure
    Sugar And Snails
    Technology
    The
    The Guestlist
    Therapy
    TikTok
    TNTB
    Toiletday
    Tourism
    Toxic Positivity
    Transfiction
    Translation
    Trauma
    Unconscious
    Unconscious, The
    Underneath
    Voice Recognition Software
    War
    WaSBihC
    Weather
    Work
    Writing Process
    Writing Technique

    Archives

    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    March 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Picture
    BLOGGING COMMUNITIES
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos from havens.michael34, romana klee, mrsdkrebs, Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It., adam & lucy, dluders, Joybot, Hammer51012, jorgempf, Sherif Salama, eyspahn, raniel diaz, E. E. Piphanies, scaredofbabies, Nomadic Lass, paulternate, Tony Fischer Photography, archer10 (Dennis), slightly everything, impbox, jonwick04, country_boy_shane, dok1, Out.of.Focus, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region, Elvert Barnes, guillenperez, Richard Perry, jamesnaruke, Juan Carlos Arniz Sanz, El Tuerto, kona99, maveric2003, !anaughty!, Patrick Denker, David Davies, hamilcar_south, idleformat, Dave Goodman, Sharon Mollerus, photosteve101, La Citta Vita, A Girl With Tea, striatic, carlosfpardo, Damork, Elvert Barnes, UNE Photos, jurvetson, quinn.anya, BChristensen93, Joelk75, ashesmonroe, albertogp123, >littleyiye<, mudgalbharat, Swami Stream, Dicemanic, lovelihood, anyjazz65, Tjeerd, albastrica mititica, jimmiehomeschoolmom, joshtasman, tedeytan, striatic, goforchris, torbakhopper, maggibautista, andreboeni, snigl3t, rainy city, frankieleon