Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

If you follow Karen (Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings) and Simon (Stuck in a Book), you’ll know that another of their hugely enjoyable ‘Club’ weeks is about to begin. Starting on Monday 12th October, the…

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Of dreams, memories, and the imagination: Slow Elephants of Milan by Ángel Bonomini

Imagine the sight: on a foggy February morning in Milan, the modest and apologetic narrator of the title story of this long overdue translation of short fiction by the enigmatic Argentinian writer&…

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The Innocent Party by Celia Dale

The Innocent Party is the fifth book I’ve read by the British writer Celia Dale, and I’m starting to wonder whether her novels fall into two distinct but closely related groups. Firstly, we have th…

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Attention Seeking Behaviour

In her debut novel, Attention Seeking Behaviour, Aea Varfus-Van Warmelo presents the reader with an unreliable narrator we can (almost) rely on, her honesty bringing the confession that she is rout…

1streading.wordpress.com

Attention Seeking Behaviour

In her debut novel, Attention Seeking Behaviour, Aea Varfus-Van Warmelo presents the reader with an unreliable narrator we can (almost) rely on, her honesty bringing the confession that she is rout…

1streading.wordpress.com

Riceyman Steps

Published in 1923, and the fifth winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Riceyman Steps is Arnold Bennett’s thirtieth novel. Set in Clerkenwell in London, it tells the story of Henry Eralfor…

1streading.wordpress.com

Riceyman Steps

Published in 1923, and the fifth winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Riceyman Steps is Arnold Bennett’s thirtieth novel. Set in Clerkenwell in London, it tells the story of Henry Eralfor…

1streading.wordpress.com

“There was something shining in the air…” #spinsterseptember #thecountryofthepointedfirs

Despite having overflowing bookshelves and a mountainous TBR, I still always seem to amass multiple copies of individual titles, and today’s book is a good example of that. Back in the 1990s …

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Altered States by Anita Brookner

Slowly but surely, I’m working my way through Anita Brooker’s exquisitely written novels in publication order – they really are jewel-like in construction. First published in 1996, Altered States i…

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The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Praised by Raymond Chandler as one of the best suspense writers of her era, the American writer Elisabeth Sanxay Holding produced eighteen crime novels and many short stories over the course of her…

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Jerome Lindon

As anyone who has come to love a writer who writes in a language you do not read knows, you are at the mercy of translators and publishers. If you are honest with yourself, you accept that certain …

1streading.wordpress.com

Jerome Lindon

As anyone who has come to love a writer who writes in a language you do not read knows, you are at the mercy of translators and publishers. If you are honest with yourself, you accept that certain …

1streading.wordpress.com

Two Months of Reading – July & August 2026

A roundup of books I read in July and August 2026 including several titles for WIT Month.

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“We laugh, and I truly believe that we genuinely like each other.”: Jérôme Lindon by Jean Echenoz

Jean Echenoz opens his tribute to his longtime editor and publisher, with an account that many other hopeful, and perhaps naïve, would-be authors might know well.  It is 1979, he has just turn…

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“…it is a bad policy to take a return ticket anywhere.” #michaelwalmer #anislandrooing #20BOS26 Book 38

If there’s ever a book which had me wanting to rush off to northern climes, it’s “An Island Rooing” by Joan Grigsby! The latest release from Michael Walmer in his Northus Sh…

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The Gentlewomen by Laura Talbot

If you follow Nora (Pear Jelly) on Bluesky or Instagram, you’ll know that she’s currently hosting #SpinsterSeptember, a themed reading event showcasing books featuring unmarried women, from the cla…

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they

Over ten years since This Should Be Written in the Present Tense was translated into English, we finally have a second novel by Danish author Helle Helle, they. Similarly translated by Martin Aitke…

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Voices that must be heard: Under a Pannonian Sky – Ten Women poets from Hungary, edited by Ottilie Mulzet

By the wine-press house, the road turns offto the right, I see low village roofs through the mountains, on roads burnished blue,I’m a stranger here, for I intrude no one in sight, only acacias, vin…

roughghosts.com

they

Over ten years since This Should Be Written in the Present Tense was translated into English, we finally have a second novel by Danish author Helle Helle, they. Similarly translated by Martin Aitke…

1streading.wordpress.com