Archive for January, 2011
‘The Poisonwood Bible’ by Barbara Kingsolver
I’ll be honest: I don’t know very much about Africa other than that it is quite hot. Nor, for that matter, have I read many books set there other than those thrust upon me at university. I don’t actively dislike Africa as a setting for literature, I just tend to gravitate more towards Victorian and [...]
‘The Last Battle’ by C. S. Lewis
One of my aims for 2010 was to read all of C. S. Lewis Narnia books, so it seems appropriate that my final book for 2010 was The Last Battle (I apologise for being so behind with reviews; Christmas and New Year are not terribly convenient times for spending time on the computer). Although I [...]
Slightly Foxed 11: A Private, Circumspect People
As the vast majority of my reading takes place on public transport of one form or another, I am mostly unperturbed by the prospect of tackling weighty books while surrounded by the inevitable distractions that ensue when there are Other People around. Nonetheless, when the mode of transportation in question is an aeroplane, it’s nice [...]
TBR Lucky Dip: January
As I explained in my post about reading plans for the new year, each month I’m going to be using a random number generator to select a book from my TBR pile for me to read, to help me read more widely from my shelves. This month, the deities of www.random.org have ordained that I should [...]
‘The Silver Chair’ by C. S. Lewis
The Narnia series has a great many things to recommend it to readers, but their chief appeal for me at this particular moment in time is how small and compact they are, thus making them the perfect books to read on the tube. I’ll soon be looking for some new light reading (both literally and [...]
‘Baudolino’ by Umberto Eco
first came into my possession when I was helping a friend sort through some of his books at university when he moved from a large room into a much smaller one. When I unearthed this book, he expressed surprise that I hadn’t already read it and then insisted that I rehome it as naturally, being [...]
‘The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ by C. S. Lewis
Back in June of 2010 it came to my attention that, although they may be firmly embedded in my consciousness, I had never actually read all of the Narnia books. This struck me as something of an oversight and I resolved to rectify the situation as soon as possible and read them all before the [...]
‘Five Children and It’ by E. Nesbit
What do you read when it’s dark and cold outside, it’s an hour of day which no diurnal creature is supposed to see and you have to leave your nice, warm, snug bed and venture out into the snow and ice for the pleasure of spending a day at work, that is if the train [...]
2011 Reading Resolutions
Although I don’t like to feel restricted in what I read, I do like to set myself some goals at the beginning of the year. This year they’re designed to guide my reading, while giving me the maximum flexibility to read exactly what I feel like reading. The TBR Lucky Dip – You might have [...]
The End of Year Book Meme 2010
I know I’m a bit later than a lot of other bloggers in posting a summary of my year’s reading, but I wanted to wait until the year had actually ended in case a few more books decided to sneak past the finish line (a fortuitous decision, it turns out, as an unexpected diversion via [...]