My book on Kindle
My book in print
Search this blog
Recent Comments
- blogmywiki on Winter holiday reading
- Clare on Winter holiday reading
- blogmywiki on Winter holiday reading
- Sarahmia on Winter holiday reading
- David Hutchins on Circus Peanut Butter
Blogroll
My other pages
My software
Currently Reading…
How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. It's funny cos it's true.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Stuck half way, but it's true, her eyes do change colour. Like David Bowie. Or a Blythe doll.
Recently read…
Gumble's Yard by John Rowe Townsend.
Noah's Castle by John Rowe Townsend.
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness. Grim, but brilliant kids' book.
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Brilliant dystopian book for teens. The short prequel is a free Kindle download.
Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman. 607 pages, seven viewpoints of the same extraordinarily inter-twined events. Clever, full of good ideas but I didn't warm to the main character and didn't love it anywhere near as much as A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz.
The Fear by Charlie Higson.
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson. I HATED this book - which was a surprise as I really liked the previous 3 Jackson Brodies, esp the previous one. Why? Too many characters I didn't care about. Not enough Jackson Brodie. And I know it's grim up North - but just too, too grim. Forced myself to finish it, but only because I bloody paid for it.
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson. MUCH better than the TV adaptation, which I found very confusing. Very readable - some of the turns choices made by the main characters have had me going 'whaaat'? but it's all the more believable and enjoyable for them.
One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson. Good, but didn't enjoy it as much as Case Histories.
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. Bliss.
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer.
Solar by Ian McEwan. Good holiday read but not stunning literature.
One Day by David Nicholls. I am officially the last person-but-one in England to read this. Loved it, though. Bastard.
Moonraker by Ian Fleming. Ah, another improbably-named young woman to see you, Mr Bond. (Like I can talk).
Obstacles to Young Love by David Nobbs. This lad Nobbs will go far. Funny, touching, very occasionally annoying, but a damn fine novel.
The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe. Hated the ending. Sorry. Sure it's been done elsewhere. My first, and probably last, Coe.
Hungry the Stars and Everything by Emma Jane Unsworth. Delicious!
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber. It's Dickens with swear words. In a good way.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. From 1949. Perfect. It's so good, I love it so much. Cannot believe I've never read this before.
Jar City by Arnaldur Indriðason - bit disappointed. Just a police procedural. Not that odd. No big DNA conspiracy.
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford - I proof-read a neighbour's uni essay on this and had to read it. Bleak it is, so bleak - especially for a man of my age and circumstance. Almost gave up but half way through I 'got it' and glad I finished it. But grim. Grim.
The Game by Jack London.
The Man Who Went Up In Smoke by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. 2nd Martin Beck novel from the original masters of the modern (1960s) police procedural.
Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming. I enjoyed this WAY more than Engleby. Really good, flavour of Bond captured very well indeed.
Dead Man's Cove by Lauren St John. Great children's book, set in St Ives, Cornwall. If the Laura Marlin Mysteries continue like this, I might have to write my own Caitlin Ros Mysteries. (Geddit?!)
Sweet Desserts by Lucy Ellman.
Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming.
Engleby by Sebastian Faulks. My first Faulks - he's too damn popular with the ladies for my liking. I almost gave up on it on page 85. Luckily something happens on page 86. Blog post coming...
Street Kids by Chandrika Kaviraj. Excellent unpublished story for older children set in Pakistan and India during Partition.
The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre.
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming. My first Bond. It's just as I would have hoped and expected. And me oh my does Vesper Lynd remind me of someone.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. There's a stunning novel in here, struggling to get out. Just spare me the state of Russian agriculture, Leo, I beg you...
Nemesis by Jo Nesbø - this is shaping up very nicely, up there with The Snowman and The Redeemer.Calendar
February 2012 M T W T F S S « Jan 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
Author Archives: blogmywiki
Where did you get that hat?
I never got hats. For starters, I look a right tit in any hat, so that rules out me ever wearing one. Women’s hats were equally baffling to me. The word ‘fascinator’ only entered my vocabulary during the recent royal … Continue reading
Grace in Small Things (2)
The view as I turn the corner from Great Peter Street into Lord North Street never fails slightly to take my breath away. You may recognise it from the film An Education. Watching a young man support his girlfriend as … Continue reading
Posted in Grace in Small Things
Leave a comment
A load of balls
I’m not sporty – and I always had sympathy with the small child in the Alan Partridge sports headlines on The Day Today and On The Hour who caused turmoil at major sporting events by pointing out that golf, for … Continue reading
Is ‘Nordic Noir’ really so strange?
I’ve just finished reading Jar City by Arnaldur Indriðason – desperate to finish it so I can watch the film back. It’s another bit of ‘Nordic Noir’, so fashionable at the moment: Scandinavian crime fiction in the mould of Wallander … Continue reading
Posted in fiction, literature, recently read
Tagged detective fiction, fiction, Iceland
Leave a comment
Master and servant
Charlie Brooker has already written, far more amusingly than I could, about the hell that awaits an iPhone user who dares to try to manage their phone from a new computer. I’ve found myself in the same kind of nightmare … Continue reading
Oppostion is true friendship
I’ve never been a very blokey bloke. I’m not interested in football – or any other organised sport. Cars, to me, are things that get you from A to B, occasionally breaking down at point C, necessitating a call to … Continue reading
Bittersweet Lucy Ellman
Poorly, elderly parents abound. I was convinced the other week that there was a great quote from the writer Lucy Ellman about the death of one’s parents. It was sad, it was witty, it was pithy. It was up there … Continue reading
Posted in fiction, grief, literature, recently read
Tagged books, grief, Lucy Ellman, recently read
2 Comments
Grace in Small Things (1)
Inspired by Sarah, here’s my first ever Grace in Small Things list. These are the little things that make life worth living. Walking to work in the sunshine. A tweet that makes you LOL but which is too rude to … Continue reading
The Curious Case of Mr Faulks and Mr Fry
Mrs Wiki has been on at me for ages to read some Sebastian Faulks. Somehow, I never got round to it. I’m not as fascinated by the First World War as she is, and frankly, that Sebastian Faulks (Seb!) was … Continue reading
Posted in fiction, literature, recently read
Tagged books, recently read, Sebastian Faulks
2 Comments
The Sacred Art of Stealing
Thanks to Annie, I am almost at the end of my first Christopher Brookmyre – The Sacred Art of Stealing. A Situationist / Dadaist bank heist, some excellent misdirection, a girl and quite a few guns (though I always thought … Continue reading
Posted in fiction, literature, recently read
Tagged books, Christopher Brookmyre, reading
Leave a comment
