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I wasn’t halfway through this book when I realized I could probably read it endlessly. Just flip back to the beginning, once I finished, and start over again. It’s that stunning.

I’m glad I waited till I had the mental space and energy to read it, because although it’s a fairly slim novel, it’s intense. There are a lot of ideas packed into it ( Read more... )

With McDermid, I keep getting the impression that I've wandered in mid-series and missed a whole chunk of back-story. I think I may actually have done so with this one, though it's difficult to tell, as there's no list of 'also in this series' inside the cover. Also, this is connected with a TV programme I don't watch, so I've probably missed stuff ( Read more... )

This left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I raced through it. On the other, I was distinctly underwhelmed when I'd finished doing so. It wasn't the laugh-a-minute the various celebrity endorsements proclaimed it to be, but who believes celebrity endorsements ( Read more... )

Earlier this year, every other book I read for this challenge seemed to be about Italy, and/or religion, and/or dysfunctional family dynamics. The last is very much present in this book, the first somewhat, the second not at all. But there's another theme that's coming out in this year's reading (not all of it in this challenge), less dominant, but ( Read more... )

The Ice Cave: A Woman's Adventures from the Mojave to the Antarctic - Lucy Jane Bledsoe:The crew here at South Pole Station has a somewhat tense relationship with the handful of expeditions that come through each year. There are no spare beds and little extra food. Usually the United States Antarctic Program makes them stay in their own tents but ( Read more... )

I think four living authors in a row must be getting on for a record for me. (The next one is most definitely dead, but more on that later...)

Boy Meets Boy is unlike any other book I've read so far for this challenge. Partly it's the genre (teenage); partly it's the being by a living author and not being set in Italy. Rather, it is set in a high ( Read more... )

As in Bechdel test, that is, and that's pretty much all I knew about her. I don't usually go for comic books, mainly on the grounds that Life's Too Short and I Don't Have A Very Visual Mind (roughly translates as "I don't give a damn what the characters look like, so pictures only distract me"), but I picked this up on a whim in the library, and it ( Read more... )