A quick post to spread the word about Greene For Gran - an initiative started up by Simon Savidge. If you're a fan of blogging Simons, chances are that you've also been over to Savidge Reads - his tastes are quite different from mine, but of course I love his blog - and through that, got to know the tastes of Dorothy Savidge, aka Simon's Gran. We were all sorry to hear about her illness, and that she passed away recently. It is only befitting, for a woman who loved reading, that people get reading in her honour - and Simon S hit upon the excellent idea of #GreeneForGran -...
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Oranges (flash fiction)
I've been vaguely intending to include some short fiction on here ever since I started up Stuck-in-a-Book, but wondering how to go about it - it might be a bit of a jolt to those of you expecting a review. But since I've put up some jovial poetry of late, I thought I might indulge myself with this, called 'Oranges'. I actually wrote it with my friend Mel's flash fiction site The Pygmy Giant in mind, but that's on hiatus, so... it will be here instead! Be kind :)The ‘five a day’ campaign was a real blessing to folk like me. I can see people slowing down as they walk past, probably...
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie
I've mentioned a few times that I have spent the past couple of months immersed in Agatha Christie, being the only author who was able to circumnavigate my reader's block - everything else I tried was abandoned after a page or two, but I could tear through a Christie in a day or two. Thankfully (for my general reading) I'm now having more success getting past p.1 with other authors, although it's still a bit impeded, but I did enjoy getting into Christie mode and wolfing them down. I haven't blogged about them, partly because Christie novels are often...
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Song for a Sunday
I'm a big Siobhan Donaghy fan, so was delighted when I heard that she would be reuniting with the other original members of (hideous band name alert) the Sugababes. For those not in the know, Mutya Buena, Keisha Buchanan, and Siobhan Donaghy founded the Sugababes when they were about 15 with the fantastic song Overload, then left and were replaced one by one, so that the Sugababes now has no original members. So the originals reformed, under the nicer but less imaginative name Mutya Keisha Siobhan, and will soon be releasing this lovely track - Flatli...
Thursday, July 25, 2013
The Red House - Mark Haddon
What with reader's block, moving house, and not having internet for a bit, it's been a while since you had a proper review from me. And today is no different, because I'm handing over to somebody else to write about The Red House by Mark Haddon, which I was sent as a review copy. Tom (who recently married my best friend) spotted it on my shelves, and commented on it, so I decided it would find a better home with him. Whether or not he ended up agreeing, you can discover below... Tom, by the by, can also be found at the blog Food, Music,...
Monday, July 22, 2013
Our future king is born!
Moving house has had its usual effect on blogging, but I just had to put up a celebratory post for the royal prince!Very, very thrilling - a great and momentous day in the life of our nati...
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Song for a Sunday
I've spent the past few days packing, and must have listened to this about forty times. It just gets better with every listen - 'Losing You' by Solange. (N.B. do not interpret this mournful title with my feelings about moving house - this time, I'm actually really excite...
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Leaving OUP (and which Jane Austen character are you?)
It feels as though it's only just started, but my time as blog editor of OxfordWords came to an end yesterday. I was there on maternity cover, and the lovely woman who'd had her beautiful baby came back to the fore. Although I was only there for just under six months, I've made some very dear friends, and was incredibly touched by the leaving gifts and cards I got. As you'll see from my selection, I certainly didn't keep my love of the Queen (and kittens) quiet...Notice also that my friend Fiona is feeding my Agatha Christie habit - and...
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Oh, Hastings
I seem to be experiencing a bit of reader's block at the moment, struggling to 'get into' any novel I pick up (and it doesn't help that most of them are in boxes, as I'm moving house this weekend.) One author is working for me, and I am chain-reading her... it's Agatha Christie. I've read five in quick succession (Five Little Pigs, Crooked House, Cat Among the Pigeons, Lord Edgware Dies, and A Pocket Full of Rye) and I've just started The Secret of Chimneys. I shan't blog about all of them, because they've gone back to the library, and...
Monday, July 15, 2013
Sketches from Year Six
I passed my sixth anniversary back in April, and since then have been intending to put together my annual collection of sketches. I always intended these to be a running part of Stuck-in-a-Book, but they come and go, depending on me remembering I do them, finding time to do them, and if anyone says nice things about them!Clicking on the picture will, in each case, take you to the post in question... (the cartoons below include quite a few two-parters, but that should be obvious in each case...) ...
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Song for a Sunday
My favourite singer, Kathryn Williams, is back with a lovely, lovely song - 'Heart-Shaped Stone'. She made my all-time top two favourite albums (Old Low Light and Little Black Numbers) and this single is very promising for the next...
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Young Entry - Molly Keane
I usually run a mile from Irish novels of a certain period - memories of The Last September make me shiver at the thought of Irish Troubles novels - but I was attracted by Molly Keane's Young Entry (1928), very kindly given to me by Karyn when we met up in Oxford last year. Any sort of political upheaval seemed a distant irrelevance to the carefree heroines of Keane's first novel (written at the sickeningly young age of 20) - a dollop of romance, high-spirited teasing, and countryside dalliances seemed a fitting antidote to the more serious or tragic...
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Further poems about authors
Many of you were kind enough to say nice things about my previous little poems about authors, and so, in this hot weather, I have turned my attention to writing a few more... I hope you enjoy them!Not relevant... but nice.A reductive reading of Dorothy ParkerPoems, journalism, more -Yet you are remembered forAdvising, to the finer sex,A total abstinence from specs.GentlemenMen apparently declareTheir love based on a woman's hair.That is all they need, to choose(according to Anita Loos.)ReassuranceYou're my favourite of the threeAnd yet you have the faintest...
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Oxford by Edward Thomas
I think most book bloggers will identify with this situation: THE book we read and never got around to reviewing. Of course, there are dozens that would fit that category, but I imagine we all have one in particular which we wish we'd reviewed at the time - either because it was so good, or because we've wanted to link back to it on many occasions. But the memory of reading it has simply faded. That book, for me, is Oxford by Jan Morris, given to me by my father when I came up to Oxford - and read about five years later, which isn't...
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany
There are three people I routinely refer to as my best friend (playing fast and loose with my superlatives) - one is my lovely brother Colin, one is my dear friend Washington Wife, and the third is wonderful Mel. (Since her blog isn't updated, I can link instead to a review she wrote for me, that was for a long time the most read page on my blog.) They're all enormously brilliant people, and I am very blessed to know them - and only one of them is biologically predetermined to like me.I bring this up only because today is Mel's wedding day, and...
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Of Love and Hunger - Julian Maclaren-Ross
It's no secret that the novels I tend to like are by women, about women, and (some would say) for women - just think of the Provincial Lady, the novels of Jane Austen, and any number of other examples. Of course, my favourite novel is by a man (Miss Hargreaves) but I don't think anybody would guess that from reading it. And yet, dear reader, I seem to be developing an affection for a new variety of British literature: men of the 1940s.The first Proper Grown Up novel I ever read (besides teenage books and the odd Agatha Christie) was Nineteen...
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Agatha Agatha
Sometimes you just need to read an Agatha Christie, don't you? Well, I do. When I was getting bad headaches still (they seem to have worn off now, for the moment at least) I needed something that didn't require much thought, but which still would be good - and so I picked up Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie. You may remember, from my report of a talk at Folio HQ, that Christie's biographer Laura Thompson considered Five Little Pigs her best novel, and so I had to give it a go.I shan't write that much about the novel, because...
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