Bookcase Credibility Rating – How Never to Have to Worry About it Again Plus a Bookish Tour of the Far East

Do you find yourself scanning the bookcases in people’s rooms when you’re on zoom, looking to see what titles they have on their shelves? Do you worry that others are doing the same to you? I’d never thought about it before, so it came as somewhat of a surprise to me when I discovered (article […]
“The Market Will be Merciless. Politics will be Deceiving, Divisive, Confrontational and Extreme. People Will Feel Anxious,Uncertain, Fearful …” Sound Familiar? This Book Will Explain Why

One of the few crazy benefits to come out of lockdown is the ability to take part in a bookclub in Florida when you live in London. Thank you ladies for inviting me. We have been studying Jonathan Sacks book ‘Morality’. Although the title sounds slightly worthy, the book is astonishing in its cultural and […]
When Books Save your Life

You certainly did not have to be a poet or an intellectual to be suppressed, threatened or murdered by fascism or communism – but it helped. Dressed for a Dance in the Snow by Monika Zgustova is the somewhat euphemistic title describing the lives of nine female survivors of the gulag; stories of those who […]
#The Wild Silence. A Review of Raynor Winn’s sequel to #The Salt Path

First of all a big shout out to Son of Rune (the elder) for the amazing transformation of the design of this blog. Thank you. The Wild Silence is Raynor Winn’s second book which covers the time from her and her husband Moth’s return home (where is home?) to the writing of the book and […]
A Brief Survival Guide

Reach for a cigarette as soon as things don’t go your way? Eat too many chocolate covered cream cakes with strawberry jam when you get nervous? Stay awake half the night to kill zombies? Does the recyling bank constantly rings to the tune of shattered glass in your efforts to keep the world at bay? […]
4 Books on the Power of Transcendence and Vision in a Divided World

I shall be leaving fiction for a while and returning to non-fiction, specifically philosophy and biography. Here is a list of four books that I shall be reading and reviewing over the coming weeks. Wild Silence Raynor Winn (author) Hardback (03 Sep 2020) | English I am beyond excited to be awaiting my copy of […]
20 Books of What on Earth Happened to Summer

Well it happened as we knew it would. We worried and dreaded our way through Spring in a mute silence broken only by newly enfranchised birds and emergency sirens. We looked forward to a potentially sickness free Summer, hoped for warmth and a chance to escape from the same view of the same four walls. […]
A Thank you Letter to my Followers … Lessons from the Wildflowers … and Why I Blog
Living takes courage. Even writing a blog takes some courage. Will anyone read it? Does it matter what I think about this book or that? Is this a good use of time? Ah … time, that elusive quality of being. There is never enough it seems. We wish for more of it or sometimes less; […]
20 Books of Summer – for a Less than 2020 Summer
It’s been a tough week here down at the old Rune stead with not a lot of reading getting done. I have parked a snail on top of my TBR pile – a glass one, not a real one. He’s there to represent the speed at which I am coursing through my list at the […]
Someone Should Write a History of Snow While we Still Know What it Looks Like: A Review of ‘Weather’ by Jenny Offill
I have made a start on my reading of the shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020. So first out of the blocks is a book published by Granta Publications Jenny Offill’s Weather. This is not a lengthy book, coming in at around 200 pages. Offill plays with technique, but not in a mad […]