Proust goes on holiday

by Sarah

My last post was all about the stress. As we were feeling frazzled, my husband, daughter and I booked flights and Air BnB and headed to Kos for some half term sunshine –… Continue reading →

A Masterclass in Dealing with Noisy Neighbours by Marcel Proust

by Sarah

I was given this slim volume of Marcel Proust’s Letters to the Lady Upstairs for Christmas, and have been keeping it for a rainy day. With the heatwave we’ve been experiencing I can hardly… Continue reading →

Crossed Swords and Crossed Lovers – Balzac’s ‘The Chouans’

by Sarah

If it wasn’t for some recent galavanting around Brittany, I can’t imagine a time that I’d have picked up The Chouans (1829) as the next ‘must read’ from my TBR. It’s not that I don’t rate… Continue reading →

Well what’s one to do when Balzac takes a bath?

by Sarah

The other night I’d been enjoying a long soak in the bath engrossed in my book, The Chouans , the first volume of novels comprising Balzac’s The Human Comedy. Thus far, I’ve enjoyed it far more than… Continue reading →

Personally, I’m more the shape of a butternut squash.

by Lucy

I want you to read The Reader on the 6:27, and so this is review without spoilers. Therefore, it’s also a review that’s not likely to make much sense, but I’m hoping it will… Continue reading →

Chalcot Crescent and seductive books

by Lucy

I wish library books had blank pages in the back to leave little messages to each other. Reviews, notes, secrets, it would be great! I am hitting up my local library more these… Continue reading →

#AW80Books – Slim, quirky and intoxicating – Amelie Nothomb’s ‘Petronille’

by Sarah

Pétronille by Amélie Nothomb (2014, translation by Alison Anderson) was this month’s reading  choice for my book group. While her parents are Belgian, Nothomb was born in Japan but currently lives in Paris.… Continue reading →

Knausgaard Vs Zola – Round 3

by Lucy

Germinal has started making my comparison complicated, as now we are no longer just with miners, with lungs full of coal dust, hump-backed children and pit ponies, we are also popping in on… Continue reading →

Proust on holiday: Jacques Tati meets Johnny Vegas.

by Sarah

Proust might not be the first name that springs to mind when choosing holiday reading material, but by happy chance I took my half-read copy of In the Shadow of Young Girls in… Continue reading →

Knausgaard Vs Zola – Round 2

by Lucy

*I am comparing the lives of the characters in Zola’s ‘Germinal’ with how things go for Karl Ove Kausgaard in the second book of the ‘My Struggle’ series, simply because I am reading… Continue reading →