Blog Archives

Reviewing my reading and writing goals for 2021

31/12/2021

We’ll remember 2021 as the year the rich countries rolled out their vaccination programmes, which should have zero overlap with my reading and writing, except that when I got my flu jab at my local pharmacy, I also managed to sell a book. So far, so serendipitous, but this post is about how I measured up against the goals I set at the beginning of this year.

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9 new micro reviews: literary fiction, short stories, a thriller, a dystopia and crime

27/12/2021

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This latest batch of micro reviews – the fifth and final one for this year – relates to novels about a Nigerian victim of child marriage and domestic slavery; white people’s funerals in post-apartheid South Africa; adolescence by the sea in North Yorkshire and Greece; pimps and drug pushers in the City of London; uses and abuses of mental health services in England; the residents and staff of a Canadian assisted living scheme for older adults; life and love in ancient Greece; a suspicious death and the boy’s disappearance in London; and a law-enforcer in a besieged futuristic city with no natural light.

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10 books I reread in 2021: hits and misses

23/12/2021

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Last January, I decided that this was the year I’d reread some of my all-time favourite books. I thought one per month would be reasonable; I actually read ten, although I’m awarding myself double points for the single non-fiction book. By sheer chance, they divided equally into five I found well worth revisiting and five that didn’t thrill me so much second time around. Read on to see which was which.

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Confined in crazy places: If At First & Piranesi

19/12/2021

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These very different novels are both about young men detained in strange settings: the first a psychiatric ward; the second a labyrinth. Steven, in the first, is a reluctant captive who needs to learn the value of where he’s landed in order to leave. Piranesi, in the second, seems perfectly adapted to his environment, but he needs to discover the dark side to become his full self.

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Dodgy business: Ceremony of Innocence & Dirt Clean

16/12/2021

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Allow me to introduce you to two novels that expose Britain’s dirty hands in the immoral corporate wheeling and dealing that directly harm the poor both here and abroad. If that sounds heavy, remember that the beauty of fiction is that it can wrap that painful politics in a gripping narrative of romance and intrigue. Now, isn’t that a step up from governments that condone such corruption or, at least, turn a blind eye?

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My 12 favourite reads of 2021

10/12/2021

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I’m always loath to share my year’s favourite reads before Christmas, in case a cracker comes along before New Year’s Eve. But, having selected a neat dozen (actually a baker’s dozen as I slipped in one more as you’ll see below), I’ve decided to take the plunge. With themes of the climate crisis, slavery, the impact of unprocessed trauma, kidnap, hearing voices, the pandemic of 1918, refugees, unexpected love, nonconformity, dysfunctional families and painful group processes, you’re sure to find something to ask Santa to put in your stocking. Or, if you follow the Icelandic tradition of Jolabokaflod, to gift to friends and family on Christmas Eve.

Most of these books are avaiable to purchase from bookshop.org by clicking this image (affiliate link)

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What makes Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections my perfect Christmas read?

3/12/2021

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On Christmas Eve last year, when many were struggling to adapt to a curtailed coronavirus Christmas, I was in my element with a long walk in the Peak District followed by settling down with a mince pie to reread one of my favourite novels. This would be the third time I’d spent the festive season with the Lamberts, and I relished their company as much as the first time I met them in the freshly-published hardback I gifted myself (with money from my mother) almost twenty years before. I love this book at the sentence level, at the level of the eternally disappointed characters, and at the level of the ridiculously sprawling 500-plus page plot.