Top Ten Utopian/ Dystopian Novels
A previous month's blog featured the best of post-apocalyptic fiction, and in order to limit myself to ten on that occasion, I had to hold back some fantastic books which are not, strictly speaking, post-apocalyptic, but feature several nasty possibilities waiting for...
Top Ten Reads for a Virtual Summer Holiday: Lockdown Escapism
When you're packing to go on holiday, is your priority the reading list? It is for me; if I've got a weight limit it's always a source of anxiety whether I'm going to exceed it, or have to risk RUNNING OUT OF THINGS TO READ. If this describes your mindset, then...
Top Ten Post Apocalyptic Novels
As I write this, the world is gripped by Corona Virus madness, panic, meltdown.... I'd always intended to write a list of the best post-apocalyptic books, but the timing did seem off. Was this really in good taste, I asked myself? But apparently books about pandemics...
A Time for cheerfulness: My Top Twenty (at least!) Funny Reads
I was going to blog this month about post apocalyptic novels, but as we seem to be living through an apocalypse anyway it began to feel a bit like bad taste. Also, who wants to read worse case scenarios when we're in the midst of them? No, I reckon what we need now is...
10 Best YA Books of the Decade
Last month's blog featured my top fifteen books of the decade. I was originally intending to limit this to ten, which was impossible, and the only way I could keep it down to fifteen was to save all the YA favourites for their own, special list. So here we go, and no,...
Best books of the decade
It was suggested to me that maybe now would be a good time to look back and select my favourite books published during the last decade. Oh yes, I thought... First problem... It's actually quite hard to remember what was published when; and humbling too. Some of my...
Top Ten Books About Time Travel
I adore anything to do with time travel. Far more interesting than life after death, easier to grasp than parallel universes, it allows for the exploration of so many ideas, concepts, truths about human nature, history, and possibilities. Here are my top ten reads. 1....
Twenty-five best reads of 2019
To select twenty-five best reads might sound easy, but it's really not when you've read over eighty books in total that year. However I always enjoy giving it a go as it's a pleasure to re-visit the year's finds. I also like cheating; finding ways to include more...
Nanowrimo -are you stuck? Hit the wall? Help is at hand. Some writing resources.
We are ten days into Nanowrimo and if you are taking part this year, you are either feeling smug about being ahead of the game (unlikely), still going strong and managing 1,667 words per day (possible), or perhaps you are struggling a bit but vowing to catch up (been...
Time to shiver: Top 10 supernatural books for Halloween
October means autumn is here. Time to curl up in front of the fire with a good book. And of course at the end of the month it will be Halloween, so maybe it's time for a good ghost story? There are so many creepy books out there I decided that in order to qualify for...