The age of humans will pass. Perhaps the end has already begun, though it may take a long time to play out. About ten years ago James Rebanks visited Norway, in particular the Vega Archipelago. His…| This Reading Life
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and dispositi…| This Reading Life
It was the beginning of October. Autumn came early in the Hokuriku region, but it would still be some time before the leaves began to turn. From the prefectural capital of T—, fresh snow could be seen on the highest peaks of the Tateyama mountain range, which separated the province of Etchū from that of … Continue reading Suspicion | Seichō Matsumoto| This Reading Life
I meant to finish this post last night after work, but yesterday was hectic. Firstly, it is new release week at work which means a busy few days receiving and shelving all the shiny new books, but October is the BIG ONE. This is the month ALL the publishers get serious about Christmas, giving their … Continue reading Book Diary | September 2025| This Reading Life
Thanks to a couple of posts by Karen @Kaggsy’s Book Ramblings over the past year or so about Clarice Lispector, I have been rather curious to read some of her stories myself, so when I spotted that Penguin had a collection of her short stories in their Penguin Archive series I thought it was the … Continue reading The Burned Sinner and the Harmonious Angels and other stories | Clarice Lispector| This Reading Life
If you have never read any of Daphne du Maurier’s stories before then After Midnight: Thirteen Tales for the Dark Hours would be a tremendous place to start. This new collection of some of her most well-known and memorable short stories pulls together an exceptionally strong line-up which highlights her versatility – there’s a mix … Continue reading After Midnight | Daphne du Maurier| This Reading Life
Jane lies in Winchester, blessed be her shade!Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made.And, while the stones of Winchester – or Milsom Street – remain,Glory, Love, and Honour unto E…| This Reading Life
It might seem like excess, but I have three collections of stories by Isaac Babel (1894-1940): Collected Stories, translated by Walter Morison and with an introduction by Lionel Trilling. Published in Penguin Books in 1961, first published in 1957 by Criterion Books and bought in an OpShop in 2015. Red Cavalry and Other Stories, translated […]| ANZ LitLovers LitBlog
Another year; another menopause book. Menopause is certainly having its moment. After decades of little to no research, study and funding, it is finally getting some much needed attention. Which is…| This Reading Life
I started reading Mrs Reinhardt and other stories by Edna O’Brien at the beginning of the year for Cathy and Kim’s yearlong Edna O’Brien project. I read five of the stories bef…| This Reading Life
Note to Reader: One of Jane Austen’s earliest surviving letters is dated 23 August 1796 and was sent to her sister Cassandra from Cork street in London, where the twenty-year-old budding auth…| This Reading Life
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the worl…| This Reading Life
© Brona’s Books 2025 | The Maroubrix Cube, Maroubra Beach August is usually the windy month; this year it has been the wet month. Perfect for reading but not so good for walking every day or g…| This Reading Life
Last month, when Marcie, Bill and I read Gooseberries for our George Saunders Swim in a Pond in the Rain project, we discovered that the Anton Chekhov story was actually part of a trilogy of storie…| This Reading Life
It was Silvia – she had discovered him before I did – who told me: ‘Look at his hands while he talks.’ He was standing there, legs slightly apart (with hiking boots, we were in the mountains); he w…| This Reading Life
Alyosha was the younger brother. He was called the Pot, because his mother had once sent him with a pot of milk to the deacon’s wife, and he had stumbled against something and broken it. His mother…| This Reading Life
#368: What had I imagined? Time as a merry-go-round one could jump on and off? The year as a stream running underneath my eighteenth of November? As it turns out, both Tara Selter and I got a littl…| This Reading Life
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. I’m stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted m…| This Reading Life
The facts of the case, though meticulously reconstructed, proved precisely nothing – except that the discovery made by two carters from Dizy made, frankly, no sense at all. It’s the 4th…| This Reading Life
A gold bar is deceptively heavy. Four hundred troy ounces, about 12.5 kilograms, of ultra-high-purity gold formed into an ingot – a sort of slender brick crossed with a pyramid. The gold bar …| This Reading Life
The whole sky had been overcast with rain-clouds from early morning; it was a still day, not hot, but heavy, as it is in grey dull weather when the clouds have been hanging over the country for a l…| This Reading Life
Listed in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s People (1979) is a superb novel about the collateral damage to family members of activists. …| ANZ LitLovers LitBlog
The day it happened, Arlie wasn’t paying attention. An owl had visited, that was the problem, but Arlie had forgotten. It is going to be very difficult to top the three insightful and engagin…| This Reading Life
Henry Thomas Austen (8th June 1771 – 12th March 1850) wrote two memoirs, or biographical notices, about his sister Jane. The first one was written in 1818 just after her death and was included…| This Reading Life
Friday, 7 November. Concarneau is empty. The lighted clock in the Old Town glows above the ramparts; it is five minutes to eleven. The tide is in, and the south-westerly gale is slamming the boats …| This Reading Life
The practical test for my CAPES examination took place at a lycée in Lyon, in the Croix-Rousse area. A new lycée, with potted plants in the buildings for the teaching and administrative staff, and …| This Reading Life
No one noticed what was happening. No one suspected that something serious was taking place in the small station’s waiting room, where only six passengers sat dejectedly among odours of coffee, bee…| This Reading Life
© Brona’s Books 2025 | The Three Sisters, Katoomba June has been grey, windy and cold with some huge overnight frosts. The crisp, blue-sky days of winter have been rare so far, so I was deligh…| This Reading Life
It seemed an unlikely choice, this large establishment in the financial district, so that I stood outside and checked the address, the name of the restaurant, I wondered if I had made a mistake. Bu…| This Reading Life
My Dearest Ruby, – We got back from Loch Sween last night. It was still raining there when we left, and we reached home in a downpour. To-day it rains steadily. A wet Glasgow Sunday! The Brit…| This Reading Life
When in 1926 Robert Chapman published his edition of James Edward Austen-Leigh’s biography of his aunt Jane Austen the Times Literary Supplement chiefly welcomed its reissue not for the life …| This Reading Life
I meet my parents at a fish shop in an inner-city mall. By the time I get there, they are waiting in their windbreakers and matching hiking shoes. I greet their outdoor energy with a wave hello. &#…| This Reading Life
Artwork by Julia Soboleva On the 25th March 18–, a very strange occurrence took place in St Petersburg. On the Ascension Avenue there lived a barber of the name Ivan Jakovlevitch. He had lost…| This Reading Life
At the sunset hour of one warm spring day two men were to be seen at Patriarch’s Ponds. The first of them – aged about forty, dressed in a greyish summer suit – was short, dark-ha…| This Reading Life
Before I knew what I was, I lived with my brothers in a grand old house in the heart of the New Forest. It had blue velvet curtains full of dust, and fire surrounds painted like marble to fool the …| This Reading Life
About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be…| This Reading Life
Helen realised that she had walked too far just as daylight was beginning to fade. As she looked around her, she was struck by the desolation of the country. During her long walk she had met no one…| This Reading Life
At first he barely notices the children. They’re waiting for the bus, a small boy, and a girl of about ten with braided hair. He’s twenty-three, too close to childhood and too far from …| This Reading Life
Original title of Master and Man: Хозяин и работник (Khozyain i rabotnik) Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (1899) Project Gutenberg 24 February 2020 ebook #986 Date Read: 10th May 2025 M…| This Reading Life
“Aren’t we kind of the opposite of Adam and Eve?” a boyfriend once asked me, long ago. I was twenty years old and had taken this boyfriend home at a time when I knew nobody would …| This Reading Life
In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, a hold-up in the traffic stopped the cab which was bringing Octave and his three trunks from the Gare de Lyon. The young man lowered one of the windows, although it…| This Reading Life
A biting wind swept through an open window at the end of the hall where Mary kept vigil outside her mother’s bedroom. The month of May had been mean thus far to the rural market town of Bever…| This Reading Life
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single lady in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a husband. ‘Nonsense,’ Miss Caroline Bingley muttered into her empty teacup…| This Reading Life
Photo by Kaye Hanson on Unsplash April, where did you go? In a blur of autumn leaves, crisp mornings, chocolate eggs and extra shifts at work another month has hurried by. It looks l…| This Reading Life
I have hated my mother for most of my life but it is her face I see as I drown. But Rowan doesn’t drown and the face she sees upon wakening is the ‘rough and wind-bitten and scratchy…| This Reading Life
At any point over the past fifty years or so a small band of dissidents have made it their business to inform the reading public that the Orwell game is up. In most cases this process involves the …| This Reading Life
The 1952 Club is hosted by Karen @Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon @Stuck in a Book. After checking the lists to see which books were first published in 1952, I realised that I had three o…| This Reading Life
Olenka, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plemyanniakov, was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. It was hot, the flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to ref…| This Reading Life
#121 There is someone in the house. Heard as he moves around the room upstairs. When he gets out of bed or when he goes down the stairs and into the kitchen. There’s the gush of water through the p…| This Reading Life
Sunlight floods the room from the bay windows, reflects off the wide, honey-coloured floorboards and casts an emerald glow over the perforate leaves of a monstera shaped like a cloud. After I finis…| This Reading Life
Throughout the latter part of the morning buggies kept turning in from the highway and wheeling up the quarter-mile of elm-arched drive to the farm – surreys and democrat wagons, an occasiona…| This Reading Life
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. I have reread Pride and Prejudice so many times I have lost count, but we must b…| This Reading Life
Jane Austen is not my secret friend – although in my latest novel Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden I made her a bothering companion to my heroine. Here in this book I try to stay with he…| This Reading Life
© Brona’s Books 2025 | Autumnal sunset in the Blue Mountains March was all about Pride and Prejudice as both myself and Mr Books revisited one of the books we studied at high school. On t…| This Reading Life
We travel for various purposes — to explore the culture of soils — to view the curiosities of art — to survey the beauties of nature — and to learn the manners of men; their different polities, and…| This Reading Life
Heaven is never-ending light. It is jasper and crystal, pearls and gold. It is lightning and rainbos and a great, rushing river. It is white horses and doves and angels singing holy holy holy and t…| This Reading Life
It began in every town and every city at the same time, in every dark and twisted corner of our world. One third of the earth’s citizens were asleep at the time. Their awakening was marked by…| This Reading Life
For Cathy’s Reading Ireland month I determined to read a few more of the short stories from Edna O’Brien’s Mrs Reinhardt and other stories (1978) as it also happens to intersect n…| This Reading Life
The small village of Kolotovka once belonged to a lady known in the neighbourhood by the nickname of Skin-flint, in illusion to her keen business habits (her real name is lost in oblivion), but has…| This Reading Life
OutsideDid you knowthat seahorseshave two skeletons:one on the insideand one on the outside?Imagine being able towear your skeleton on the outsidelike armour,making sure that predators knownot to c…| This Reading Life
During her short lifetime, which ended prematurely at the the tender age of forty-one, Jane Austen gifted the world with six timeless novels, each bearing the indelible imprint of her literary geni…| This Reading Life
Blackboards chalked ‘Positions Vacant’ hang against the wall. She feels like she has walked all morning to get here. She hurries past loiterers with worn faces and sagging hats. They sp…| This Reading Life
They found him through an advertisement on Gumtree. “For sale: nine-week-old fawn-coloured male mini lop in search of his forever home. Lovely temperament, well handled. Comes with transition…| This Reading Life
They drove out of the town at half past eight in the morning. The road was dry, the wonderful April sun was very warm, but there was still snow in the ditches and the woods. The fierce, dark, long …| This Reading Life
US cover UK & Aust cover St. Louis is a big city, a cold one, and it has a population of 800,000…Working men and women, lots of Negroes, it’s the city of 100,000 Negroes. The Missis…| This Reading Life
It’s hard to believe this photo was taken a few days before the wretched incident. The three of them looked really happy, at ease with one another, as if there was a bond of mutual trust amon…| This Reading Life
The Spainish Civil War was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Spanish Republican Government and Nationalist rebels. The Republicans included socialists, communists, anarchists and Catalan and Bas…| This Reading Life
You were the one who told me about the town. On that summer evening we were heading up the river, the sweet fragrance of grass wafting over us. We passed over several little weirs that held back th…| This Reading Life
When in 1926 Robert Chapman published his edition of James Edward Austen-Leigh’s biography of his aunt Jane Austen the Times Literary Supplement chiefly welcomed its reissue not for the life …| This Reading Life
For the past couple of years, Fanda @Classiclit has been hosting an Agatha Christie short story readalong. The idea is to read two AC short stories each month (you can see her selections for each m…| This Reading Life
In the autumn of 1996 my daughter, the writer Anne Giardini, and I travelled to Richmond, Virginia, to present a joint paper at the Jane Austen Society of North America, an organisation that compri…| This Reading Life
The family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived…| This Reading Life
Uta-jima – Song Island – has only about fourteen hundred inhabitants and a coastline of something under three miles. Uta-Jima is a fictional island, but it is situated within the real l…| This Reading Life
Last year, around the time that Cathy and Kim announced that 2025 would be their Year with Edna O’Brien, I came across this book of Edna O’Brien short stories in a local street library.…| This Reading Life
This is what happened in Faha over the Christmas of 1962, in what became known in the parish as the time of the child. It’s almost four years now since I read This is Happiness by Niall Willi…| This Reading Life
