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 […]
The Double Edged Sword of the Literary Prize – and The Legend of The Tiger’s Wife
Prizes can be a double edged sword. Yes it’s great to win them, the publicity, the fuss, the champagne, what’s not to die for? But maybe this draws attention away from equally worthy writing. But then we have to live in the real world, which costs money, etc. So I go round in circles. I’m […]
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 […]
Are the only sparrows left the ones we dream about?
I dreamed about sparrows last night which I found rather sad if the only sparrows left are in dreams. “Miners use canaries to warn them of deadly gases. It might not be a bad idea if we took the same warning from the dead birds in our countryside.” So wrote Lord Shackleton in 1963 […]
