Tag: memes

#TopTenTuesday Best Books I Read In 2021

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Top Ten Tuesday new

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

  • Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
  • Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
  • Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
  • Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s topic is Best Books I Read In 2021. This is a topic I look forward to but at the same time dread because it is so difficult to choose only ten books from the many fabulous books I read this year. However I know I’m not alone in this dilemma. Having rewritten this list about a hundred times and with apologies to the authors whose books so nearly made the list, here are my chosen ten. My thanks also to the publishers who sent me review copies of the books or approved my requests for digital copies on NetGalley.

Links from the titles will take you to my review.

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers – Tender, intimate and heart-breaking
Blasted Things by Lesley Glaister – Intense, compelling and moving
White Dog by Rupert Whewell – Satirical, witty and provocative
When The World Was Ours by Liz Kessler – ‘an inspiring testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the kindness of strangers’
Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson – Gripping, atmospheric and immersive

 

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed – Compelling, intense and chilling Booker shortlisted novel
The Hidden Child by Louise Fein – Thought-provoking, moving and immersive
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan – ‘a quietly powerful novel, an exquisite little gem of a book’
Little by Edward Carey – Quirky, imaginative and engaging
The Visitors by Caroline Scott – Eloquent, tender and emotional

 

 

#WWWWednesday – 22nd December 2021

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

ThePigeonTunnelThe Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life by John le Carré (Penguin)

From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War to a career as a writer, John le Carré has lived a unique life.

In this, his first memoir, le Carré is as funny as he is incisive – reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels. Whether he’s interviewing a German terrorist in her desert prison or watching Alec Guinness preparing for his role as George Smiley, this book invites us to think anew about events and people we believed we understood.

Best of all, le Carré gives us a glimpse of a writer’s journey over more than six decades, and his own hunt for the human spark that has given so much life and heart to his fictional characters.

Love After LoveLove After Love by Ingrid Persaud (Faber)

Meet the Ramdin-Chetan family: forged through loneliness, broken by secrets, saved by love.

Irrepressible Betty Ramdin, her shy son Solo and their marvellous lodger, Mr Chetan, form an unconventional household, happy in their differences, as they build a home together. Home: the place where your navel string is buried, keeping these three safe from an increasingly dangerous world. Happy and loving they are, until the night when a glass of rum, a heart to heart and a terrible truth explodes the family unit, driving them apart.

Recently finished

Links from titles will take you to my review

Hitler’s Taster by V. S. Alexander (Avon)

The Last of Our Kind by Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre (Hodder & Stoughton)

Little by Edward Carey (Gallic Books)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

Blue Shoes and HappinessBlue Shoes and Happiness (No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency #7) by Alexander McCall Smith (Abacus)

Life is good for Mma Ramotswe as she sets out with her usual resolve to solve people’s problems, heal their misfortunes, and untangle the mysteries that make life interesting. And life is never dull on Tlokweng Road.

A new and rather too brusque advice columnist is appearing in the local paper. Then, a cobra is found in the offices of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Recently, the Mokolodi Game Preserve manager feels an infectious fear spreading among his workers, and a local doctor may be falsifying blood pressure readings. To further complicate matters, Grace Makutsi may have scared off her own fiance.

Mma Ramotswe, however, is always up to the challenge.