On the blog last week
Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books On My Winter 2025/26 To-Read List.
Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading.
Friday – I published my Q&A with Mark Newies, author of The Unburdening of Ruben Miles.
Saturday – I had a bookish chat with author David Atkinson about his time travel novel Future Proof.
New on my shelves
Country People by Daniel Mason (John Murray via NetGalley)
Across the border from Oakfield, Massachusetts, the setting of Daniel Mason’s North Woods, sits the college town of Greensbury, Vermont, where a young family arrives one summer day from California for an idyllic year in the country. There is Miles, a loveable if highly distractible scholar of Russian folktales who has been “working” on his dissertation for fourteen years; Kate, his wife, a superstar English professor whose ambition is fueled by a brush with serious illness (and managing her hapless husband); their fantasy-loving son Wesley; their artist daughter Olive; and their dog, Giuseppe, a truffle-hunting master of excavation in a land with no truffles.
Over the course of the year, as Kate introduces her students to the pleasures of Milton and Blake, Miles will make no progress on Russian folktales, but will, through what Kate calls his “capacity to fall in with anyone, anywhere,” gain entrée into a world with a mystery of its own, a place not only of immense natural beauty and unforgettable neighbors, but also a bizarre, even ridiculous, local legend, which – Miles begins to wonder – might not be a legend after all.
A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia (Picador via NetGalley)
Rome, 1953. David is young, handsome, charismatic and sworn to celibacy. He is freshly ordained, and about to return to England to begin life as a priest. Devotion to God is all he’s ever known.
In London, Margaret is entangled in an impossible love affair. Committed to living on her own terms without sacrificing her faith, she becomes drawn to a women’s movement challenging the archaic rules of the Church.
When their lives are thrown together at a Catholic college in a quiet village, an undeniable connection forms between them. And so begins a story of forbidden love, sacrifice and secrets, with consequences that will reverberate across the generations.
What I’m currently reading
I’m reading Odin’s Game (the final title I need to complete the What’s In A Name 2025 reading challenge) and historical novel A Granite Silence.
Look out for…
- Excerpt: Tethered Spirits by Corinne Hoebers
- Book Review: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Q&A/Excerpt: Murder at the Summer Cheese Festival by Jodie Morgan
What Cathy Read Next... 