August 2025 – Kate Macdonald
1 post published by Kate during August 2025| Kate Macdonald
(Recorded without naming and shaming their unfortunate authors who don’t need to know, but you do.) Knife behind back, by Yoshitomo Nara. The one whose opening chapter contains a messy birth, a fla…| Kate Macdonald
Some great, many good, two absolute stinkers. Ngaio Marsh, Grave Mistake I have no memory of ever reading this, yet it’s got a record in my reading diary from thirteen years ago so I’m …| Kate Macdonald
I can’t remember how this truly excellent fantasy novel found its way into our house. We know it was at EasterCon this year, but while my husband claims the credit for buying it, I’m no…| Kate Macdonald
John Clute is a Friend of All the World in the science fiction and fantasy community, and it would be hard to find a writer or other participant in British (possibly also North American) SFF fandom who hasn’t met him, had a conversation with him, been given useful information by him, or been encouraged by … Continue reading John Clute, The Book Blinders→| Kate Macdonald
My affection for Katherine Addison’s marvellous series of fantasy novels set in an extraordinary world of goblins and elves with extremely formal dress codes has been documented here for The Goblin…| Kate Macdonald
Here are some books I’ve read recently that I thought were pretty good, or very, very good, but I did not have the time to write about them fully in my usual way. Ann Leckie, Translation Stat…| Kate Macdonald
I wrote about these two excellent memoirs of Greek island life in the 1950s, and posted the review on Substack. Do read it there!| Kate Macdonald
Two (fairly) recent novels about uncovering the reasons behind a death in a medieval setting both use unusual storytelling forms to give the reader clues in a novel way. I listened to Laurent Binet…| Kate Macdonald
I admit, I asked for this review copy with some dubiousness. It was pitched to me with a quote from the author: ‘I was going through a phase of reading Sylvia Townsend Warner novels and was inspired by Lolly Willowes: the story of a quiet, Edwardian spinster convinced she is a witch, who breaks away … Continue reading The Magickal Summer of Evie Edelman, by Harriett de Mesquita→| Kate Macdonald
Musicologists assemble! This is a great group biography, of four British women composers of the twentieth century. One is still well-known: I say ‘still’ because she is now, but Dame Et…| Kate Macdonald
I last wrote about Galt’s Annals of the Parish ten years ago, and now I’ve done it again, posting a long piece about it on Substack, because I love this novel so much.| Kate Macdonald
This was a delightful and unexpectedly insightful read. There has been a very welcome rush of Japanese novels in English translation into the anglophone market in the last few years. I’ve read a few, but this is the one I’ve enjoyed most for a relatively quick read but which also stayed with me. More importantly … Continue reading Nanako Hanada, The Bookshop Woman→| Kate Macdonald
I’ve written a long and slightly stroppy Note about Anthony Trollope’s The Small House at Allington over on Substack: here it is.| Kate Macdonald
