Tag: memes

#TopTenTuesday Small Things Like These: 10 Quick Reads #TuesdayBookBlog

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Top Ten TuesdayTop 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 Top Ten Quick Reads, defined as books that are 150 pages or less. Here are ten short books that you could polish off in a day – or an afternoon/evening, depending on how fast you read. Links from the title will take you to my review.

  1. Together by Luke Adam Hawker (64 pages) – a gentle and philosophical look at the events of 2020, the year of lockdown, through the eyes of a man and his dog
  2. Joan Smokes by Angela Meyer (76 pages) – packs a powerful emotional punch with its haunting story of rejection, loss and trying to start over
  3. El Hacho by Luis Carrasco (82 pages) – a timeless evocation of inheritance, duty and our relationship to the landscape that defines us
  4. Christmas at Ladywell by Nicola Slade (97 pages) – having refurbished her inherited house, Freya has to transform her tiny stone barn into a romantic hideaway for a mystery guest 
  5. A Stranger from the Storm by William Burton McCormick (110 pages) – who is the mysterious figure haunting the catacombs below the streets of Odessa?
  6. A Devil Comes to Town by Paolo Maurensig, translated by Anne Milano Appel (118 pages) – when the devil turns up in a black car claiming to be a hot-shot publisher, unsatisfied authorial desires are unleashed and the village’s former harmony is shattered
  7. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (128 pages) – as Bill Furlong, coal and timber merchant, does his rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church
  8. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (128 pages) – had the dogs not taken exception to the strange van parked in the royal grounds, the Queen might never have learnt of the Westminster travelling library’s weekly visits to the palace
  9. Welcome to America by Linda Boström Knausgård, translated by Martin Aitken (128 pages) – a dark and scintillating portrait of a sensitive, strong-willed child and a young mind in the throes of trauma, a family on the brink of implosion, and the love that threatens to tear them apart
  10. The Former Chief Executive by Kate Vane (150 pages) – a taut psychological study of grief, secrets and trying to leave behind your past

What quick reads can you recommend?

#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from All Day at the Movies to The Name of the Rose

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation.

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees.

All Day at the MoviesFor this month’s starting book we’re given the choice of either the book we finished on in January or the last book we read. I’ve chosen to start with the last book I read – All Day at the Movies by Fiona Kidman. I haven’t got around to writing my review yet so the link from the title is to the book description on Goodreads.

This Mortal Boy was the first book I read by Fiona Kidman. An account of a real life case, it depicts the events leading up to one of the last executions in New Zealand. In a possible miscarriage of justice, twenty-year-old Albert Black was convicted of murdering another young man in Auckland in 1955.

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed depicts another real life miscarriage of justice, this time in the Tiger Bay area of Cardiff in 1952. Mahmood Mattan, a recent immigrant from Somalia, was hanged for the brutal murder of a shopkeeper despite the eyewitness evidence being shaky at best. To quote from my review, ‘the final chapter of The Fortune Men made me cry; the epilogue made me angry’.

From one brutal murder to three brutal murders, this time in the Scottish Highlands in 1869. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet comprises a collection of documents including witness statements, medical reports and a trial transcript. But the key document is a detailed memoir written from his jail cell by Roderick Macrae, the young man who admits to committing the murder. But should we believe all the evidence presented to us?

So far, we’ve focused on the victim but in Those Who Know by Alis Hawkins it’s the investigator who takes centre stage. The third book in the Teifi Valley Coroner series sees Harry Probert-Lloyd and his assistant, John, investigate the death of a pioneering schoolteacher whose death may not be the accident it first appeared.

The death of a former schoolmaster also features in The Teacher by Tim Sullivan, the latest book in his crime series featuring DS George Cross.

The previous book in the series was titled The Monk which leads me to book which features a monk turned detective, namely Brother William of Baskerville in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, memorably portrayed in the film version by Sean Connery.

My chain has taken me from a book referencing the movies to a book made into a movie. #6Degrees of Separation December (2)Where did your chain take you this month?