The first books of my 20 Books of Summer in 2020! I started it just before the kick off. It's one of the random buys I choose when bulk shopping at AbeBooks, for used bargain books. A habit I missed for months now thanks to lockdown. Our narrator is Marsha, she recalls the summer of …
Continue reading A Crime in the Neighborhood – Suzanne Berne
I remember the morning, long ago, hen the landlord called. [...]he said that of course we were aware that our lease was up? I said well, no, we hadn't really known that our lease was up. So he said well, he supposed that we hadn't looked at the lease recently and I (wondering if that …
Continue reading Life Among the Savages – Shirley Jackson – Quotes
So far I've read four books by Shirley Jackson, this one included. The first three I loved. We Have Always Lived in a Castle was an unexpected discovery for me, as I've never before heard of Jackson. Let Me Tell You a lovely holiday discovery from Barcelona. The Haunting of the Hill House could be called a …
I read this book ages ago, you could even say in a different world. I was autumn 2019 and I was happily on vacation in Crete, enjoying the amazing food, lovely weather, and beach. It feels surreal now, even though just before all the lockdowns I've also been to Tenerife enjoying pretty much the same …
Japhy and I were kind of outlandish-looking on the campus in our old clothes in fact Japhy was considered an eccentric around the campus, which is the usual thing got campuses and college people to think whenever a real man appears on the scene - colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middle-class non-identity …
I've had this book on my shelf for years, bought probably eight or nine years ago in one of the second-hand bookshops. I think it must have been the £1 one because there's no price penciled in the book. Given my black heart and lack of patience for overly involved self-exploration, you could ask why …
The doctor's surgery is full of men and women who do not know why they are unhappy. 'Take this,' says the Doctor, 'you'll soon feel better.' They do feel better because, little by little, they cease to feel at all. Of course we have romance. Everyone can see how useful romance is. Even the newspaper …
'There's no such thing as autobiography, there's only art and lies' This was my fifth book by Winterson. I absolutely loved Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?. Christmas Days made me all warm and fuzzy in that special time of year. Only to be slightly disappointed by Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. And then to be …
I have a strange feeling I already wrote a review of this book, but I cannot find it anywhere. I write some reviews by hand first, but it's not in any of my notebooks. It's not in WordPress and I don't have it saved as word doc anywhere. Still, in my mind, I feel like …
Continue reading Lionel Asbo: State of England – Martin Amis
I think that was the last one in the series that I owned. Apparently number four, but I didn't read them in order anyway, they're very loosely connected. Some characters repeat, but they always get reintroduced. I'll borrow the synopsis from Goodreads, as it gives a good summary of the plot. Alix London, the art …
Continue reading The Trouble with Mirrors – Charlotte Elkins, Aaron Elkins
bookskeptic.com 