Your Christmas reading list is sorted. After months of disappointing starts, I’ve finally found a book that I can recommend with all my heart. Shuggie Bain is a once in a generation novel that tells the simple story of a son’s devotion to his alcoholic mother. Set in Glasgow in the 1980s, where the mines […]
Category Archives: Grab it Now
November
23
Phosphorescence by Julia Baird
posted by Ms K
I am just going to leave this line here and let’s gaze up on it together because goodness knows we need a breather…. Maybe it’s just that we’re all made of stardust. I don’t know what it is about this statement, but it calms me so deeply so I hope that may be true for […]
September
27
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
posted by Ms K
This one teased me in book shop windows but it took me a hot second to realise Rodham was fiction and not, in fact, a biography. Talk about judging a book by its cover. Readheads, this is one of the cleverest stories I have read for a very long time and the question on the […]
August
09
Melting Moments by Anna Goldsworthy
posted by Ms A
Ok Readheads – I’ve just picked your next book. Put it on your book club list and lend it to your friends and family. Especially your Mums. Melting Moments tells the life story of Ruby Jenkins, but really is a universal study of the changes that take place over the course of life. […]
June
22
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
posted by Ms K
Ever imagine if Jesus had a wife? Sue Monk Kidd did and has written an incredible story about who she may have been. She was Ana – a rebellious, wip-smart woman full of curiosity and gifts, all glorious traits we want in women today – back then, ah, not so much. Ana was a force, […]
May
17
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
posted by Ms A
What a cracking work of fiction. Hands down my most enjoyable read of the year so far. Hamnet is a fictionalised account of the death of William Shakespeare’s son. Clearly I wasn’t listening at school, because I had never known that Shakespeare had three children (a girl and then a twin boy and girl) and that […]
May
08
There Was Still Love by Favel Parrett
posted by Ms K
This is The Indie Book Awards 2020 Book of the Year so attention needs to be paid. The list of fans of There Was Still Love, and indeed anything written by the author, is as long as it is wide and I see why. She is a beautiful storyteller. I admit I read this one […]
April
26
A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry
posted by Ms A
It’s the aftermath of the Civil War in Tennessee and “the time is so dangerous that the law is barely possible”. An Indian girl named Winona is living on a farm with two soldiers who adopted her, their landlord and two recently emancipated black slaves. Released in March, A Thousand Moons is the latest from […]
Stoner by John Williams
posted by Ms A
I’m not sure I can explain to you how much I loved this book. Surely the most pure, quiet and understated work of fiction I have read in a long time. Stoner was first published in 1965 with no fanfare. Fifty years later, it was discovered by the general public and became a bestseller across […]
April
07
Adults by Emma Jane Unsworth
posted by Ms K
What a great time to be a book lover! For those of us who can think of nothing better than being forced to stay indoors and read, well, this crazy new Covid 19 reality is heaven on a stick. My bedside table is piled high with new, fresh, delicious reads because leaving the house for […]
Readhead 