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The Reading Corner

This is a blog about the books I’m reading. Not reviews exactly, but my responses to books, which will be to do with my taste and my experience and what’s going on in my life at any given time, rather than just how good the book is. There might be a book I think is brilliantly written with a perfect plot, but I just don’t respond to it, or another that I love despite it’s flaws. So you’ll be getting books, but you’ll be getting a lot of me thrown in too. So don’t take my word for it, read them yourself.

I read a lot of books, fiction and non-fiction, and also poetry. This blog will be about the books I read for pleasure rather than for work or research. It will include a lot of novels, but there will be other books too. I don’t really know what to expect, but I hope you enjoy it.

Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay Thumbnail

A few years ago our book group read Trumpet by Jackie Kay. I’d organised an event with her at the library the previous year and still had her mobile number in my phone. We all loved Trumpet and we drank lots of wine, and late in the evening I thought it was a good idea [...]

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell Thumbnail

I love Karen Russell. I would like to meet Karen Russell. I would like to be her friend. I would like to tell her how much I love her writing , how when I read her collection of short stories St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves I was so excited – thrilled that [...]

Longbourn by Jo Baker Thumbnail

This week included an overnight hospital visit and lots of waiting about as well as the launch of Tainted Love, my second novel. So anxiety levels have been a bit higher than normal. I wanted a book to read whilst waiting, but it had to be one that was going to grab me and hold [...]

The Children Act by Ian McEwan<br/><span class='sec_title'>Contains spoilers!</span> Thumbnail

I’ve just finished The Children Act by Ian McEwan. I’ve read quite a few of McEwan’s books, and enjoyed most of them. I love his writing. It’s precise and exact. He knows the way his characters think and why they behave the way they do, and he describes it to you perfectly, intricately, so it [...]