Before I left for Paris earlier this month, I had caught up my Reading Journal and meant to share photos of those pages with you. Didn’t happen, so now I’m going to post two or three times before the end of the year. . . .
Continuing from where I left off,
Entry #62, Simon Armitage’s Walking Home. I actually wrote more about this memoir over on Instagram than I jotted in my journal — and unfortunately, in both spots it’s rather faint praise. . . .
Entry #63, Tembi Locke. From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home. (If you remember my most recent blog post — oh, so long ago! — you’ll have noticed that Sicily is becoming a theme here).. . .a post on IG as well, if you’d like to see the book’s cover.
64. Alice Zeniter, L’Art de Perdre (apparently to be published in English translation as The Art of Losing sometime in 2020 — watch for it!) IG posts here and here. Won a number of Goncourt prizes in 2017, most notably the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens.
65. Steven Price, Lampedusa. (Yep, again with Sicily!!) . . . IG post here
66. Jill Ciment, The Body in Question IG post
67. Kate Di Camillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Read a recommendation of this somewhere in Social Media and borrowed it from the library to see if it might make a good gift. I think it could be good to read aloud to the Seven, not sure if her brother, Four, would follow well yet.
You’ll have good reason to be skeptical, but I have high hopes of publishing another post tomorrow, and perhaps another after that so that I’m completely caught up by New Year’s Eve — and then I’ll post my 2019 Reading List within the first few days of the new decade . . .
I’m sure some of you have been finding time to read now that the festivities have quietened to that wondrous lull we treasure this time of year. . . . What treasures did you pull out of your Christmas stockings or from under the tree? (Or did the library deliver for you this last week, as it did for me, a few books you’ve had on Hold for ages?). Time for one or two last book chats of 2019 — leave a comment below, please, to get the conversation started.
Was going to get The Simon Armitage but checking out your comments maybe I’ll let it pass. The others are all new to me. Good to have more to add to my library hold list.
I’ve just discovered a new author , M W Craven who is excellent. A crime writer with books set in Cumbria. Delicious partnership of detective and his somewhat autistic side kick. His first ‘The Puppet Show’ has a shocking start and a really twisty plot. Great descriptions of place and laugh out moments between the macabre. Just started his second; Black Summer. Looking good already. B x
Thanks so much for this comment B! (I do worry I might have put you off the Armitage unfairly, but it really didn't work for me although there are undeniable charms throughout).
I'm keen on this M W Craven, but unless I order from Amazon (which, so far, I have avoided, although my days of resistance are probably numbered, and futile ;-), his titles are so far not showing up at our library nor on the online databases of a number of bookstores — although one shows that the latest (The Curator) will be released later this year, and is available for preorder. I expect that is going to change quickly now that he's won a Golden Dagger. . . A bit frustrating in the meantime, but I've made a note now and look forward to reading the Washington Poe series eventually. Enjoy Black Summer — good mysteries are so delicious in the deep winter. . .