Thoughts on reading
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In January 2021 I gave myself a challenge to read for thirty minutes a day, every day for a month. Prior to lockdown in March last year I read on weekdays on my commute. I had two and half hours a day on trains and tubes and at least some of that time was for…
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I was at a book reading (of The Rent Trap by Rosie Walker and Samir Jeraj) at David’s Bookshop in Letchworth recently, and because I have poor impulse control in book shops, I bought more books. One of them was an essay on giving gifts, specifically giving books as gifts, by Robert Macfarlane, called The…
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A little while ago I decided I didn’t want to write any more reviews of books I didn’t enjoy. There are two reasons for this. First, I don’t like doing it, the posts are hard to write, I don’t want to be negative, and I believe that if you can’t say something nice don’t say…
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I’ve been putting this one off since the end of September. It felt a bit like hard work. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel was the Book Club book for September but this time I can’t blame the Book Club for making me read something I wouldn’t have touched otherwise because there was already a copy…
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You know there are some books that you’re really supposed to like, or at least pretend to like. A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul is one of those. All the world appears to think it’s great. This was the December read for my book club and I don’t think I would have ever…
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This is not one of 2011’s 100 books. I read this last year and I’m a little behind in my thoughts on reading posts. I’m a huge fan of Iain M. Banks. I think his science fiction is way better than his mainstream stuff (which I do still enjoy). Matter simply confirmed that for me.…
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I have a huge stack of books I’ve read waiting for blog posts. Some seem like much harder work than others. Selling Out by Justina Robson is one of the easy ones. This is book two in the Quantum Gravity series, and this time I’ve actually read the first one. What I love about this…
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There are some books that have been on Book Mountain for a very long time and Boudica, Dreaming the Eagle by Manda Scott is one of them. I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to get around to reading this, other than the fact that the copy I have is in hardback. Dreaming…
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I’m working my way through Michael Moorcock’s The Eternal Champion series and recently I read Corum. Elric is one of my favourite characters in literature and I enjoy the self-conscious/aware nature of the multiple worlds cycle that is the Eternal Champion. Although one might argue that Moorcock is simply telling the same story over and…
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Royal Flash by George MacDonald Fraser is the second in a series of books following Flashman, the bully from Tom Brown’s Schooldays (which I never read). Naturally, I haven’t read the first in the series. Well, this is a pretty entertaining romp that doesn’t take itself seriously at any point. Actual history is tweaked to…
Boudica Marginalia 