Evening all, attempting a long overdue catch up. Life seems to be taken over by Christmas shopping and preparing (already!), work, and Strictly (as some of you will testify!)
Congratulations @satelliteheart on your new arrival! Enjoy every second of every minute.
Hello @bettbburg Glad to have you home with us.
I fucking hated every fucking second of Cold Comfort Farm. Meh. I read it when its virtues were extolled by an ex friend (one of the ones who uploads photos onto FB of her lovely Sunday roasts, and scrunching through autumn leaves and sitting with her wonderful children by the roaring fire on a Sunday- wank wank)
Quick update of nothing terribly exciting- too busy to really sit and wallow in lovely books, am keeping up with the Nigel Slater readalong as usual, but not managed to either post or cook much so far! Which brings me nicely to:
41Wintering by Katherine May.
Read and reviewed a fair bit on here last year if I remember correctly. Well, she can fuck off as well. What navel gazing, entitled twaddle. Ended up reading a chapter at a time as I was getting so cross with her. The concept is lovely, winter as a time of reflection, hunkering down, bottling fruit, etc, except she veers all over the place with the concept every time she introduces one of her irritating anecdotes into it and wintering turns into a horrible disaster zone. All rather dramatic and exaggerated- her husband is at death's door, but turns out to have appendicitis, she herself talks about ignoring the obvious signs of bowel cancer that turns out to be some form of bile malabsorption. She's too ill to work (can't work out if this is mental health related or physical) so gives up work and goes to Norway, Iceland (nice if you can afford it) and Stonehenge among other places in her "wintering" quest. She's very snobby- Halloween is dissed about children playing trick or treat who "won't be able to afford a front door" like hers, and see Halloween as a moment to "express their wound up potential for making trouble". She is scathing about M&S, the WI and a woman whose "face is the north side of 40". She takes the piss out of the Stonehenge fans then says going to the solstice changed her life.
And if that all weren't enough, her favourite word is "liminal" and she uses it (and explains its meaning) at least once every 5 pages. Like we're daft. Grrr.
42 Let Me Lie Clare Macintosh- more twisty thriller stuff. Not quite as page turny as Hostage, but still a good, if slightly implausible psycho thriller.
43 I See You Clare Macintosh. Worst of the three I've read. Neither bad, nor good.