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First, a warning: this book is not a book, it is a TIME PORTAL. Like Rach, Kel and Shaz, the teenage protagonists of Colwill Brown’s We Pretty Pieces of Flesh, I started secondary school in 1…| Laura Tisdall
Manda Scott, Any Human Power. This long and weird novel focuses on a single British family who recognise that the world is swiftly being destroyed by those in power and decide to create a grassroots movement to promote true democracy. It’s narrated from the point of view of the grandmother, Lan, who in fact dies at the … Continue reading 20 Books of Summer, #18 and #19: Any Human Power and Helm| Laura Tisdall
The final image at the end of Stranger Things season 4. This post contains minor spoilers for all four seasons of Stranger Things, although they relate only to character arcs rather than the main plot-lines. One of the seminars I’ve run for years now for the undergraduate students who take our second-year team-taught module at Newcastle on histories of … Continue reading Don’t Bury Your Gays: Queer-Coding and Stranger Things| Laura Tisdall
Álvaro Enrigue trans. Natasha Wittner, You Dreamed of Empires. This short but incredibly intense speculative historical novel spans a few days in 1519, focusing on the infamous encounter between co…| Laura Tisdall
Every year, I say I’m not going to shadow the Women’s Prize this year, but after the disappointment that was the 2024 longlist (although we did end up with a worthy winner, hooray!) thi…| Laura Tisdall
A short reading diary for the end of January as I’m currently nearing the end of three (excellent) books which I will post about separately. Nussaibah Younis, Fundamentally. I had intensely m…| Laura Tisdall
I’ve attended the Durham Book Festival every year since I first moved to the north-east in 2017. It’s a fantastic festival, very well-organised, showcasing some brilliant writers. This …| Laura Tisdall
Two more reviews from the Booker longlist today, plus my rankings and predictions before the shortlist is announced TONIGHT! Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner: Ah, I really don’t know what to m…| Laura Tisdall
In this post, I’ve picked twelve 2023 releases that I am particularly looking forward to, then, as always, added a further eighteen books that I want to read in 2023, whether they are new this year…| Laura Tisdall
Again, the Superlatives format is borrowed from Elle. I only feature books that I read for the first time this month, not rereads (otherwise the worst book would obviously be Skellig) The Best Book…| Laura Tisdall
Kate Reed Petty’s debut True Story, like many other contemporary novels over the past few years, tackles the topic of sexual violence – but with a twist. Alice is a teenager a…| Laura Tisdall
I wasn’t going to read My Dark Vanessa. Not even when I saw how many rave reviews it was getting from bloggers I trust. Based on this, I was sure that it was a good book; that it dealt though…| Laura Tisdall
Quick-fire reviews of some more books that are not included in my 20 Books of Summer challenge! Antonia Hodgson, The Raven Scholar. In the walled capital city of Orrun, seven contenders arrive to compete to be the next emperor. Court scholar Neema is unexpectedly drawn into the trials after one of the hopefuls is murdered. This was … Continue reading More Quick-Fire Reviews of Some Non-Summer Reads| Laura Tisdall
I’ve been racing through my 20 Books of Summer partly because I went on a holiday with lots of long bus journeys and partly because a lot of them were NetGalley ARCs that publish in June or J…| Laura Tisdall
An early Superlatives post this month because I’ll do my round-ups at the end of December. If I read anything especially good or bad before then, I’ll find a way of talking about it! Th…| Laura Tisdall
Frances Cha’s debut novel, If I Had Your Face, is narrated in first person by four women in their late twenties and early thirties living precarious lives in contemporary Seoul (they actually…| Laura Tisdall
Keiko Furukara is thirty-six and works in a convenience store. She has no partner and very few friends, so her family are consistently worried about her, especially her younger sister, who gives he…| Laura Tisdall
Angela Chadwick’s debut, XX, imagines a world where two women are able to have their own biological child – who will always be female – through ovum-to-ovum fertilisation. Jules a…| Laura Tisdall
Having read Louise O’Neill’s debut, Only Ever Yours, virtually in one sitting, I still can’t decide if it’s a messy triumph or an occasionally-brilliant mess. It gets worse:…| Laura Tisdall
On my recent holiday to Norway, I was lucky enough to read three books that proved to be excellent company (plus some others that were less so, but will not be spoken of here). While I, as usual, had some critical thoughts about each of these books, they were all gripping, extremely enjoyable, and perfect … Continue reading Holiday Reading Guide, 2025 (& 20 Books of Summer, #11 and #12)| Laura Tisdall
If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere wellIt were done quickly. Miranda is a college theatre director working on a production of All’s Well That Ends Well, one of Shakespear…| Laura Tisdall
We continue in our slightly-out-of-reading-order journey through my 20 Books of Summer with a collection of short speculative fiction – both SFF and horror – and a science fiction novel composed of longer short stories. Nisi Shawl ed., New Suns 2. I was deeply impressed by New Suns, also edited by Shawl, which brought together an exceptionally strong … Continue reading 20 Books of Summer, #8 and #9: New Suns 2 and Here and Beyond| Laura Tisdall
[A moment of reflection, please, for how rubbish these covers are and how much better Basilisk has been served by its US cover, and The Echo Maker by any of its previous covers, but especially this one.] I’d been intending to read Richard Powers’s The Echo Maker for six years, but I only found out about Matt Wixey’s forthcoming debut Basilisk when … Continue reading 20 Books of Summer, #6 and #7: Basilisk and The Echo Maker| Laura Tisdall
I last took part in this back in 2019 (though I’ve done other similar tags, like the Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag in 2020); I first saw it on Eric Karl Anderson’s YouTube channel. It̵…| Laura Tisdall
There’s a new sub-sub-genre in town, and I have to say I’m loving it. This one combines elements of both psychological thriller and dark academia, and it always has the same plot: the …| Laura Tisdall
Gary was once a normal boy from Stevenage. Now he’s the sole survivor of a group of astronauts sent to investigate a gigantic alien artefact out beyond Pluto’s orbit, wandering through …| Laura Tisdall
Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver, her second immersive folktale retelling, was one of my top ten books of 2020. Her latest novel, A Deadly Education, is both utterly different and equally brilli…| Laura Tisdall
I read a lot of short stories, but I feel like they rarely get the recognition from me that they deserve because it’s unusual that a whole collection is so good as to, say, make it into my to…| Laura Tisdall
From a tree to a house; from the whole of the United States to a single New Jersey town; from the mastery of the natural world to being mastered by it; from protection to being left unprotec…| Laura Tisdall
Deep in the thick of marking, I wanted to kick off 20 Books of Summer with immersive, quick reads, and these two sophomore novels about intense but non-sexual bonds delivered. Ling Ling Huang’…| Laura Tisdall
Sarah Moss, Ripeness. Having read all of Moss’s fiction to date (plus her memoir Names for the Sea), I’ve become very familiar with her thought-world, and have started to wonder if she&…| Laura Tisdall
20 Books of Summer is no longer being hosted by Cathy of 746 Books, but Annabel of AnnaBookBel and Emma of Words and Peace have stepped in instead – hooray! This year, it runs from 1st June t…| Laura Tisdall
I read this as part of the Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge, now in its thirteenth year! Looking for a ghost story for Halloween? This may not be the place to start. Kate Murray-Browne’s debut, The…| Laura Tisdall
A personal note: THANK GOD I finally read a book I loved in 2023! Bodie is returning to her old prep school, Granby, for the first time since the 1990s to teach a couple of elective classes in film…| Laura Tisdall
Again, the Superlatives format is borrowed from Elle. Much of my reading this month has been from the Women’s Prize longlist, so I won’t rehearse that. See this post for my rankings and…| Laura Tisdall
Joanna Miller, The Eights. Set over the course of the academic year 1920-1, Miller’s debut novel follows four female undergraduates who start at Oxford at the same time women are finally perm…| Laura Tisdall
The two big US/Canadian and British women’s fiction prizes have just posted their longlists! (The Australian Stella Prize also announced its longlist on Tuesday.) I don’t intend to do a…| Laura Tisdall
NB. I’m still working on my post about three standout novels I read earlier this month – not to say these ones were bad! Andrew McMillan, Pity. This Barnsley-set novella traces both hom…| Laura Tisdall
Kate van der Borgh, And He Shall Appear. Dark academia is en vogue at the moment, spawning its own sub-sub-genres all over the place. And He Shall Appear is what I shall refer to as classic dark ac…| Laura Tisdall
In this post, I’ve picked twelve 2025 releases that I am particularly looking forward to, then, as always, added a further eighteen books that I want to read in 2025, whether they are new this year…| Laura Tisdall
It’s time for another top ten books of the year list! (You can find my 2023 post here, my 2022 post here, my 2021 post here, my 2020 post here, my 2019 post here, my 2018 post here, my 2017 post he…| Laura Tisdall
Hiking solo in Boulder, Colorado, November 2024. This felt incredibly appropriate because at the time Tepper published this book, she had lived all her life in Colorado, and, but for the mentions o…| Laura Tisdall
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due: This is a full-blown old-fashioned horror novel, but in the very best way. Like Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, Due draws on the real-life atrocities committe…| Laura Tisdall
