Category: Reading

Farmer, writer, influencer, tour guide, oxherd

8/6/2023

There must be more than six degrees of separation between a boy who attends his oxen in rural Thailand and a contemporary social media influencer in the USA. But the farmer could be one steppingstone between them and the writer a link from the other end. The tour guide could be the bridge in the middle because they might need to shit in the woods. What am I on about? The answer is in these five mini reviews.

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How did I do in 2022?

21/1/2023

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Yeah, I know I’m late with this – most people have moved on from 2022. But I thought I’d do a quick recap of my reading and writing year. Although I didn’t achieve everything I’d set out to do, I think I did okay, especially with losing several potentially productive weeks to illness.

Publication

The year’s main achievement is the publication of my novella, Stolen Summers, the prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home. This didn’t only mean completing the manuscript and working through the edits, but also learning about self-publishing – which has put me in good stead for my next book.

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Are toilets visible in fiction?

21/11/2022

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People often think I’m joking when I mention World Toilet Day every 19th November. But 3.6 billion people living with inadequate sanitation is no laughing matter. Unsafe and unsanitary toilets can damage people’s health and inhibit access to education. They also pollute the environment.

The theme for World Toilet Day 2022 was making the invisible visible. Although the invisible in question is the human waste leaching into rivers, lakes and soil, it could also refer to a pet project of mine.

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9 recent reads and a 99-word story inspired by one of them

11/11/2022

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A couple of jewels and a few disappointments amongst these nine recent reads, including a rare one-star for a Booker-prize shortlisted book. I’m happy to recommend The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (which I came across on TikTok) and Mrs England, but do browse through the others – you might find something that appeals.

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A choice of reading for LGBT+ History Month

2/2/2022

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February is LGBT+ History Month, which aims to promote equality and diversity for the benefit of all. Five years ago, I was honoured to be invited to speak at the launch of a project to create an archive of LGBT+ history in Derbyshire, near where I live.

That year – 2017 – marked the fiftieth anniversary of Britain’s Sexual Offences Act. I’d naïvely assumed this Act spelt liberation but no! I learnt, from another speaker, that decriminalising homosexual acts between consenting men over 21 in private led to an increase in persecution for behaviours outside the narrow scope of the law.

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Reviewing my reading and writing goals for 2021

31/12/2021

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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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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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Halfway to my official target, I’m below where I thought I’d be

30/6/2021

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Reading isn’t a race, but when Goodreads invites me to set myself a target, and offers to monitor my progress, I’m happy to join in. For the past few years, I’ve aimed for 100 books, smugly confident I’ll sail across the finishing line before the trees shed their leaves. But not this year. Based on my stats so far, I’ll be lucky to reach my centenary by Christmas.

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My reading and writing goals for 2021

11/1/2021

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Did you ever get the feeling 2021 might not happen? We’d somehow be stuck in a 2020 Groundhog Day? Or were you the opposite, confident a new diary would create this worn-out world anew? Well, here we are, with some things as bad as ever – or worse: in the UK, with the new variant, hospital admissions are higher than during the first lockdown – but with the promise of life edging towards normal sometime this year.

Meanwhile, we plod on, making the best of what freedom we have. For those of us who live primarily in our heads, the pandemic is no excuse to shirk. So, on the reasonable assumption I’ll survive to implement them, here are my goals and plans for the coming year.

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Out with the old, in with the new (once we’re all vaccinated, of course)

31/12/2020

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See what I THOUGHT 2020 would bring

Adieu 2020, you won’t be missed! Although we won’t be fully done with you until we’ve all been vaccinated (and for we poor Remoaners, until we rejoin the EU). Nevertheless, our internal clocks insist it’s stocktaking season: the time to review our successes and failures, to measure ourselves against January’s goals. Starkly unblinkered this year, we gaze back at what seems the Age of Innocence, adjusting our aspirations for 2021. But however we’ve fared, since the pandemic makes staying alive an achievement, we can congratulate ourselves on arriving here.

Amid the lows and lows, I’ve made some progress with my reading, writing and promotion, with some positives that wouldn’t have happened without lockdown. Let’s have a closer look!

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Twelve novels and two non-fiction books: my favourite reads of 2020

29/12/2020

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Proof, if proof were needed, we are living through strange times: I’ve selected two non-fiction books among this year’s favourite reads. But fiction still gets preferential treatment on Annethology… or could it be I’m saving the best for later?

I hope you’ll browse through my choices, the novels listed in the order I read them, and let me know if any chime with yours.

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No place in the American dream: Stoner & Interior Chinatown

8/11/2020

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No, I'm not going to mention the election, although I read the second of these two novels as a certain world leader screamed for the count to be suspended in some states and accelerated in others. And I wouldn't want to speculate on whether the status of these fictionalised ordinary Americans might shed some light on how half the country lost its mind. But I do love a story that upends the American dream. Where is the space for those who don’t strive for success and fame? Where do the American Asians fit in the narrative? Prepare to be provoked and entertained!

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Heard on the radio (and on YouTube) #flashfiction and singing

12/9/2020

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Do you listen to the radio? I was weaned on “Listen with Mother” at home on weekday mornings and progressed to “Music and Movement” a weekly treat at infant school. Although we did have television, there was more variety on the radio, as I recall. Nowadays, the only time I tune in is in the car and, since the pandemic, I’m in the car less often. It’s a pity, because I’ve discovered some fabulous music through the radio and, despite the competition from podcasts and the like, there are still some excellent spoken word and magazine programmes on BBC Radio Four. But even in during the old normal, my radio regime was flawed, as I couldn’t always dovetail my journeys with the broadcasts that interest me. I find it frustrating that, stuck in queueing traffic after a choir rehearsal, it’s Hobson’s choice between stabbing rap (no thank you), up-your-arse philosophising and choral Evensong (love the music, hate the prayers).

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

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Reading Women in Translation Sept 2019 to Aug 2020

28/8/2020

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Between the beginning of September 2018 and the end of August 2019, I read 24 books by women translated into English. Between the beginning of September 2019 and the end of August 2020, I read … 24 books by women translated into English. How could I be so consistent? I didn’t plan it that way! The image on the left shows the covers in the order I read them.

Fourteen languages are represented (one up from last year): Arabic, Bangla, Dutch, Finnish, French x 4, German x 2, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian x 2, Japanese, Korean x 2, Persian, Spanish x5

With twelve publishers represented, that’s slightly fewer than last year: Bloomsbury, Europa Editions x 2, Faber, Granta books x 2, LesFugitives, MacLehose Press, Peirene Press x 2, Penguin USA, Pushkin Press x 5, Quercus, Serpent’s Tail x 2, Tilted Axis

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12 recommended reads for World Refugee Day

20/6/2020

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Twenty people a minute abandon their homes to escape war, persecution or terror. The United Nations has designated June 20 as World Refugee Day in solidarity with refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless persons and returnees. The global pandemic means they need our support more than ever; having made my donation, I’m ready to share some fiction books you might like to read. All were published within the last ten years and are loosely arranged in historical order of the story setting, beginning with two set in the Second World War and ending with two which are timeless. I’ve limited myself to twelve, but could have chosen more. I hope you find something here to tempt you.

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Sleep, insomnia and mental health in contemporary fiction

3/5/2020

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Early this year, I was prescribed a course of antibiotics. While I’m grateful to live in a time and place where such things are available, this medication did not like me. Not only did they leave a nasty taste in my mouth, they disturbed my sleep to the extent of fleetingly fragmenting my mind in a manner akin to psychosis. So I don’t need convincing of the importance of getting sufficient sleep to our psychological (and physical) well-being; but we can also get too hung up on sleep such that the associated anxiety can be almost as damaging as not sleeping. I drafted this post back in February when I saw that sleep was the theme of this year’s mental health awareness week; although that's now changed to kindness, with many suffering insomnia in lockdown, this post on sleep in my own reading and writing still seems worth sharing.

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My first month of lockdown reading and recommendations

28/4/2020

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After a full month of lockdown, am I any closer to answering the question I posed to myself at the end of March: Do you read differently in anxious times? Of course not! While my preference for fiction remains, I’ve enjoyed both long and short novels this month, both sober and comic, and, as for theme, read wherever I took my fancy from my dwindling TBR shelf. I’ve shed cathartic tears in response to a political satire – thank you Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony – and laughed deep into my belly reading a novel about the experience of depression – Rabbits for Food. We’re strange creatures, we human beings!

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Do you read differently in anxious times?

29/3/2020

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As I said earlier this month, in a more optimistic – or head-in-the-sand mentality – there are good things about the coronavirus pandemic, an obvious one to this blog’s readers being more time to read. On the other hand, while we might find unexpected gaps in our schedules, anxiety consumes vast quantities of headspace, reducing our capacity for, on some days, anything more taxing than watching cat videos and repurposing unloved paperbacks as toilet tissue. So I’ve been wondering whether I, you, or anyone else, reads differently in times of high anxiety. What do you think?

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Summing up my reading for 2019

31/12/2019

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I’ve read a lot of books this year. Sure, right, tell us something new! I surpassed my Goodreads target. Don’t you always? Isn’t it because you set the barrier so low? Yet but I beat it by almost 50%. Surely it’s about quality, not quantity? Indeed, that’s why earlier this month I shared my 13 favourite reads of 2019. Thirteen? Not ten or a dozen? You like numbers? Come on, let me show you some! I’ve got some pretty graphs too.

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My 13 favourite reads of 2019

20/12/2019

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When’s the best time to share the year’s reading highlights? Too early and there’s a risk of omitting an as-yet-unread pinnacle of literary excellence; too late and the post gets lost in the Christmas excitement, panic or lethargy. Last year, I thought I’d cracked it by divvying up my nineteen favourites across four separate posts but, having been slightly more disciplined in my selection this year, I’m posting the whole feast in one go. So, whether it’s a crackerjack or a turkey of a day for social media, here are my thirteen best books of 2019. So far!

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Do you read above the level you write?

29/11/2019

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When, well over a decade ago, I heard I’d won my first short story competition, I was bursting to tell someone. It being a weekday, and Mr A busy at work, I phoned a certain person I knew would be at home. Her reaction? Perhaps you imagined it! Well, I do find it hard to tell the difference between fiction and reality sometimes.

This is the person who informed me, shortly after I began to try to write for publication, that she’d stopped reading novels because she knew she could write better herself. She had attended a creative writing class, but hadn’t attempted a novel and probably never would. She wasn’t happy when I told her she must be reading the wrong things. But it seems to me essential that, if you aspire to write at any level, you should be reading better than you write.

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October’s reading and reviews

29/10/2019

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But, Anne, the month isn’t over! And there’s still a guest post from stellar indie author Geoff Le Pard to come. Indeed there is, Anne, but I reserve the right to wrap up my reading a couple of days early. Click on the image to see my reviews.

Fortunately the end of the month doesn’t mean the much-heralded divorce from the EU – although I’m not ruling out the possibility of a crashout between drafting this and posting – but it does mark an intensification of the countdown to Christmas. Not that it interests me particularly, apart from in the hope of people buying my books as presents. For those in the East Midlands (UK) I’ve got two high street signing sessions scheduled next month. Who knows? I might even take along some tinsel!

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What’s your favourite novel about mental health?

8/10/2019

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Having spent the bulk of my wage-earning life in mental health care, it’s not surprising that the theme crops up in my writing. But, as a reader, my professional experience can make me more picky. For World Mental Health Day this week, I’m asking for your favourite novels about mental health, sharing some of my own reading recommendations and illustrating how I’ve drawn on the theme in my fiction. Continue reading also for news of how to be in with the chance of winning a signed copy of my next novel, which is set in a psychiatric hospital in the process of closing down.

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Celebrating Women in Translation 2019 #WITMonth #amreading

30/8/2019

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In my post for women in translation month last August, I flagged seven qualifying books I’d read over the previous twelve months. The stories took me around the world to Europe (Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland) and beyond (Iran, Oman and Japan). But I thought I could beat that between September 2018 and August this year. It’s looking like I have!

Read on for bite-sized summaries of these 24 books, roughly in the order I read them, with links to my longer reviews if any take your fancy.

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Do you have a preferred reading pace? #amreading

30/5/2019

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Because I get through so many books – 147 last year – people often assume I’m a fast reader. But I don’t think that’s the case – although admittedly I’ve never measured it – more a matter of devoting a lot of time to reading (and for some of that time I’m asleep). On the odd occasion I’ve read the same book as Mr A, he seems to finish sooner. But neither of us read as some people do, scanning the page as a whole rather than consuming it bit by bit, sentence by sentence.