"Metamorphosis"

Why have I not read any Kafka until now? Truth be told, I thought he was as literary high-brow and as inaccessible as Proust, Joyce, Dante (not to say that I won’t read Proust, Joyce or Dante at some point as I want to but previous attempts have failed); I was, however, wrong. From the [...]

Seven Days of Reading…

I love the language of Gabriel Garcia Marquez; I love his wordiness. There are few writers whose work I find celebrate language, literary language, as much as he does although Angela Carter and Salman Rushdie readily come to mind; each of these three writers plays with language, each story tell and each, it has been [...]

Books Worth Reading for the Covers Alone

The title of this blog is slightly tongue-in-cheek; it’s not a philosophy I would advocate, to buy books solely based on their covers, but Persephone Books are incredibly pretty and make a welcome addition to any bookcase. Above you will see an image of my burgeoning Persephone collection, both the original dove-grey covers and the [...]

Book Meme

This is hardly inspired for so early on in my blog but I don’t have time today although I do have the inspiration so look forward to more creative book blogging in the future. Grab the nearest book. Open it to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the sentence in your [...]

Miss Pettigrew Lives On

I was completely charmed by Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. It has no substance but it’s not supposed to; it’s an enchanting 1930s grown-woman’s fairy tale (a Cinderella/rag-to-riches story), which cheers one up immensely. I read the book a year ago and it was a (mostly) faithful adaptation. I thought it was well-cast, well-acted [...]