I’m waiting for… 2019 edition

Seems there’s lots of good reading to be done this year (have I ever started a year not thinking the same…? No).

Four Quick Reviews

It’s getting to that stage where every spare moment is spent on ‘end-of-year’ stuff, leaving precious little time for writing reviews. I’m taking a short-cut. 

Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts

01. Dragged the children to the MoMA exhibition this week. I didn’t take pics of my favourite pieces (too busy enjoying) – a Le Corbusier scale model of Villa Sayoye and a small Matisse canvas that was amazingly vibrant.

I watched the airport departures board included in the exhibition for ages – you don’t realise what you miss until you see it again… the soft whir of the board clicking over was deeply nostalgic.

Book vs. Film: On Chesil Beach

Book. Because –

Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts

01. I took my daughter to the Katy Perry Witness concert last week. As always, Perry was FUN, energetic, and wearing amazing costumes. Highlights: the staging for Swish Swish and the eighties South Beach vibe for her Teenage Dream set (bad pics but you get the idea).

Six Degrees of Separation – from Atonement to Bitter Orange

It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up!

Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts

01. I’ve finished uni for the semester. Now I’m planning six weeks of fun.

Sample Saturday – two thrillers and a spy story

Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.

Quick! I need to read a whole book.

Sometimes a very, very short book is just the ticket – reading slump, testing a new genre, choosing something for your book group (because you know they don’t have the stamina for anything over 200 pages), a long train ride…

Here’s a list of my favourite very short books.

My Best Books for 2016

A ‘classic’ was defined by Italian author Italo Calvino as “…a book that’s never finished saying what it has to say.”

Now, I’m not claiming that the books I truly loved this year are ‘classics’, however, I’m borrowing Calvino’s definition to guide my list of top picks for 2016. This year, I’m paying less attention to five-star ratings and more attention to the books that are still speaking to me.