StuckinaBook

H is for Hill

This is part of an ongoing series where I write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here. How...

Tea or Books? #93 Do We Care What Characters Are Called? and Two Tove Jansson Novels

Summer, Winter, names – welcome to episode...

One Woman’s Year by Stella Martin Currey

There were several independent publishers I knew I wanted to read for #ReadIndies month, and of course Persephone was among them. But...

Dear Reader by Cathy Rentzenbrink

I will read any book about reading, as you might be aware if you’re a regular reader of Stuck in a Book. Some of them are among my...

The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi

I got sent Helen Oyeyemi’s second novel, The Opposite House, by the publisher in… 2008, the year after it was published. Oops, sorry...

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley

For #ReadIndies month, I had to pick up one of the many unread British Library Crime Classics I have on my shelf. Or, more precisely, piled...

Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett

Arnold Bennett is perhaps one of those names who is more remembered than read nowadays, though I know there is a very active Arnold Bennett Society that always seems to notice when I review one of his books. Hello! And...

A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Janeites will read anything about Jane Austen – and it’s also a truth universally acknowledged that this opening ‘bit’ is wildly overused. Sorry about that. Anyway, I...

A round-up of #ReadIndies books

I’ve been busy reading for Karen and Lizzy’s #ReadIndies month, and here are three of the books that came off my tbr pile for it. They could scarcely be more different! The book: Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair The...

Notes From No Man’s Land by Eula Biss

#ReadIndies naturally made me think of my unread pile of Fitzcarraldo Editions. I’ve yet to buy any of the blue fiction titles, but am amassing the white non-fiction – mostly spurred on by how brilliant This Little...

Interview: Will from Renard Press

This month, Karen and Lizzy are running #ReadIndies – encouraging us all to read books published by independent publishing houses. If you’re anything like me, you’ve got loads waiting on the shelves, and I’ve...

Tea or Books? #92: Do We Care What Characters Wear? and Girl, Woman, Other vs Life After Life

Bernadine Evaristo, Kate Atkinson, and clothes – welcome to episode 92. http://www.stuckinabook.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Tea-or-Books-episode-92.mp3 In the first half of the episode, Rachel and I discuss...

The Indignant Spinsters by Winifred Boggs

Last year, Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs was one of my favourite reads, and I’ve made no secret about the fact that I’d love it to be a British Library Women Writers title at some point. But it wasn’t the...

The BookTube Spin

Look, I’m not on BookTube – where people talk about books on YouTube, for the uninitiated. Nobody needs to see my shoddy camera angles and poor editing technique. But I do enjoy watching a few of the channels, and...

Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell

I imagine you’ve probably read Shaun Bythell’s very funny accounts of running a secondhand bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland – Diary of a Bookseller and Confessions of a Bookseller. I love them and I’m hoping they...

The Land by Vita Sackville-West [or a bit of it]

I am trying to be the sort of person who likes poetry, and picking some of the poems off my bookshelves. If I’m honest, it hasn’t been an enormous success yet – though I did enjoy some of the Yeats I read, and...

For All We Know by G.B. Stern

What a curious novel, which has left rather an impression on me, even though I find it a little complex to untangle. I bought For All We Know [1955] in 2011, based on having enjoyed her books on Jane Austen that she...

Nothing is Black by Deirdre Madden

I absolutely loved Molly Fox’s Birthday a year or so ago, and so over Christmas I thought I’d treat myself to one of the other Deirdre Madden novels that I’d since been stockpiling. I went on Twitter for advice,...

Tea or Books? #91: Familiar or Unfamiliar Settings? and Two Elizabeth von Arnim novels

Elizabeth von Arnim and settings of novels – welcome to episode 91! http://www.stuckinabook.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/tea-or-books-episode-91.mp3 In the first half of the novel, we look at the settings of...

2020: Some Reading Stats

Hopefully you’ve already seen my Top Books of 2020 – and now its time to do one of those fun reading stats posts, that delight other bloggers and blog readers and probably totally baffle normal people. Along the...

Peas in a Podcast #14: Christmas special!

We recorded this before Christmas, but look where we are. Still the 12 Days of Christmas! http://www.stuckinabook.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/PiaP-14.mp3 As usual, we talk sticky rice, remote control cars, and...

Rosemary’s review of Project Places

In 2019, Rosemary joined me in #ProjectNames – one of the most rewarding reading projects I’ve done. Last year, she decided to keep going with #ProjectPlaces. I asked if she wouldn’t mind sharing her experiences...

Top 12 Books of 2020

It’s been a terrible year, but it’s been a great reading year. I always wait until December 31st before I let myself compile this list – and going through the year’s reading, picking out the best books for a...

Happy Christmas giveaway!

You don’t need me to tell you that this has been a weird and sad year, and it’ll be a weird Christmas. I don’t know what the restrictions are where you are, but this will be the first Christmas I haven’t spent...

A moving memoir of racism, poverty, and abuse

I recently finished a memoir, read by the author as an audiobook. It was a really striking portrayal of growing up as a mixed-race child in America in the ’70s, with violence, poverty, and uncertainty. The narrator was the youngest of three, and can barely remember a time when her parents were together. Their relationship was volatile, and they had divorced by the time she could remember – leaving her with some resentment of her...