A character in the opening story of Like Life muses on how lost she feels, wondering ‘How did one get here? How did ones eye-patched, rot-toothed life lead one so cruelly, like a trick, to the middle of the sea?’ It is a question that many of the characters in these perceptive and poignant stories…
Read more No 412 Like Life by Lorrie Moore Book 8 of #20booksofsummer21
Mary Lavin is probably one of the best short story writers you have never heard of. A former staffer at The New Yorker in its heyday, Joyce Carol Oates has called her one of the ‘finest short story writers of the twentieth century’. Her stories are, in the main, concerned with the domestic sphere and…
Read more No 537 Happiness by Mary Lavin #readingirelandmonth19
The curse of 20 Books of Summer has struck again! For yet another year, my reading is going really well, but the reviewing is falling by the wayside. I swore I wouldn’t do mini-reviews, but I have to face facts. We’re one month in and by my calculations, I should have 6.66 books reviewed. I…
‘Whatever happened to Philip MacCann?’ is a phrase that crops up if you do even a cursory internet search of this elusive author. I’m not even sure if I am right to include MacCann in Reading Ireland Month as he is possibly not Irish. Some sites say he was born in Belfast, more that he…
It’s hard to believe a year has passed, but there are hints of a change in the weather here in Ireland and I’ve decided to challenge myself again this year to read my 20 Books of Summer! Last year I managed a mere 16 ½ books, so hopefully I can beat that record this time…
The full title of this collection is The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares: Novellas and Stories of Unspeakable Dread. Joyce Carol Oates might not seem like the first port of call if you are in the mood for some unspeakable dread, but novels such as Zombie, My Sister, My Love and We Were the Mulvaneys all…
Read more No 700 The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates
By Crooked Cat author, Val Penny
Energy with Positive Purpose
There is nothing more satisfying than reading a book while sipping a hot cup of tea.
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. – Italo Calvino
Pillaging the public library so you don't have to.
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