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Director: Chloe Zhao Agnes: Jessie Buckley The Bard: Paul Mescal In my last post I said I would review Hamnet the film when I had seen it but that the book was probably better. I have now seen the film and nothing has happened to make me change my mind. I am sure my view
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I am proud to say that Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell was my book of the year in 2020. Although it was far from being everyone’s book of the year; an inexplicable omission from the Booker Prize – even from the longlist – the book did win the Women’s Prize for Fiction in that year. Now
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Happy New Year on this first very cold Monday of 2026. I’m not very good at planned reading but even in chaos mansions there are some organised ideas about forthcoming books. While the needle in London has hovered all day around 0 degrees centrigrade and staying inside has seemed an excellent idea, I would like
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#DoorstoppersinDecember The Rose Field Philip Pullman Pages 621 Published by David Fickling Books *** “Then tell me something else, she said. “Tell me what’s in the red building in the deserts of Karamakan. The building the roses come from.” “…an opening into another world…” When Laura Tisdall announced that she would be hosting the Doorstoppers
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These are the 10 best books that I read in 2025 ( not necessarily published in this year although five are). Starting with my book of the year …ta dah… Please click on the title to read my full review. Cello: Journey Through Silence to Sound (2024) by Kate Kennedy Author Quote: “What better instrument
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I read this for the 2025 Dean Street December challenge hosted by Liz@Adventures in Running, Reading and Working from Home. Stella Gibbons was born in 1902 and died in 1989. She was raised in Kentish Town, London by her parents. Writing in the introduction to The Snow Woman, historian Elizabeth Crawford states that Gibbons’ mother
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Well, two. And one not very Christmassy. I don’t watch anything like the number of films in the cinema that I once did. I suppose nobody does – see streaming giants etc. But also I get so tired of feeling preached at or patronised. So two films in as many weeks is a lot. Since
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Date: 2025 Director: Jon M Chu. Glinda : Ariana Grande-Butera Elphaba: Cynthia Erivo The Wizard of Oz – Jeff Goldblum Fiyero – Jonathan Bailey *** Back in 1939 MGM made a film called The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland as Dorothy, alongside various tin men, straw men and cowardly lions. Based on a book
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“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” In 1928 Virginia Woolf was asked to give a talk at Newnham College and Girton College, Cambridge on the subject of ‘Women and Fiction’. The two lectures she prepared
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Nonfiction November Week 5 and November Wrap Up. New to my TBR hosted by Deb Nance at Readerbuzz It’s been a month full of fab Nonfiction finds and novellas. Thank you so much. Wonderful posts from everyone. I didn’t know where to turn and could have easily added 200 books (!) but as I normally
