I’m going to be controversial: I have a hard time enjoying World Book Day. I know, I know, it’s great to encourage a love of books in children. And it’s so much fun. My main issue with it is that my children struggle with sensory issues and don’t like changes to routine, so the pressure…
Category: Books
Year in Books
2022 has furnished me with a lot of lovely reading time. I find that often, my book choices connect with the seasons, so this year I thought I’d use that, as I sum up the books I most enjoyed this year. Let me know what you have read, and how the seasons affect your reading!…
Favourites
I was rambling on to Andrew last night about what a “good run” of books I have had recently and I think he thought I was slightly loopy. I was trying to explain the difference between the love I have for all books, generally (there are very few I don’t enjoy), and the sheer delight…
2021 in Books…
Like everyone else, I didn’t find 2021 the easiest year. As I pushed my way through it (much as one might hack through relentless thornbushes: with a lack of verve, but a certain sense of grim resolve), I found ways to take care of myself amid the sheer exhaustion. I threw myself into short power…
What I’ve Been Reading: Once Upon a Time in the East, by Xiaolu Guo and Hungry, by Grace Dent
These are two ostensibly different memoirs, but they have in common authors who reveal an immense force of vulnerability, strength, tenderness and passion. Both women have sharp intelligence, gritty determination and a gift for insightful, vivid writing. In both books, we explore childhood: Guo’s in rural China and Dent’s in working class Carlisle. Both authors…
Regeneration: The Rescue of a Wild Land by Andrew Painting
Regeneration is my brother’s book about his time working as an ecologist in the Cairngorms in Scotland. Regeneration is my brother’s book. Which makes writing about it that bit more complicated. But, fortunately, it’s a really good book. A lot of people have already written about it, using words like “ground-breaking” and “remarkable”, so we’ve…
Happy World Poetry Day!
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” This famous quote from Mary Oliver’s poem, The Summer Day, is something I think about a lot these days. It’s a poem – a very beautiful one – about paying attention to the small things in the world. Read…
Lions, Gingerbread Bears, Ants and Eagles (or, What I’ve Been Reading)
I was sat on the floor in the dark, a duvet pulled over me, while my son struggled to settle to sleep. Both of us were out of sorts, tired and restless. By the dim light of my phone, I began to read to him. The book happened to be Prince Caspian, by CS Lewis,…
Lost and Found
More and more, I am a reader of novels. Avid to the point of addiction. I am obsessed with the way stories can connect us so much with our own truths and the truths of others. It so happens that the last two books I have read have both been stories of adoption. They are…
All you need is LOVE
What does balance look like for you? This is the question Fearne Cotton asks in her wise, engaging pep-talk of a book, Happy.‘ I’ve been trying to give myself the pep-talk for a while now. You know, the whole self love, self care, self respect kind of pep-talk. (It’s not about being selfish, by the…
Life Lived 