What Katie Read

Hello fellow readers! I am sorry to disappoint any faithful followers, but I have decided to stop posting reviews on this blog. The settings within the site have changed so it no longer sends email alerts of new posts to my subscribers. However, in case anyone is actually checking the blog and would like reading suggestions, I will add new books to the list below every so often. Books I have enjoyed recently: Saving Missy  by Beth Morrey Three Things About Elsie  by Joanna Cannon Girl A  by Abigail Dean The Bedlam Stacks  by Natasha Pulley Akin  by Emma Donoghue 10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world  by Elif Shafak The Devil and the Dark Water  by Stuart Turton True Story  by Kate Reed Petty Weather  by Jenny Offill Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd  by Jonas Jonasson Yours Cheerfully  by A J Pearce The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot  by Marianne Cronin

  If, like me, you are a fan of the Deutschland 83-86-89 TV series, then this book is for you. Half set in East Berlin in 1987-9 and half in 2010, it follows the story of Ella and her search for the truth. In 1987 Ella is living with her family in an apartment near the wall. Her parents are art historian academics, who are becoming more and more uncomfortable with and restricted by the state’s viewpoint over worthwhile art and the freedom of artistic expression, or lack thereof. Whereas Ella’s grandmother, who lives downstairs, and of whom Ella is very fond, is a card-carrying GDR supporter. To her grandmother’s dismay, Ella’s parents hatch a plan to escape to the west. Flash-forward to Berlin in 2010 where we meet Aaron, an English PhD student interning at the Stasi archive. The shredded Stasi files are being painstakingly reconstructed, and victims of persecution are able to access their surveillance documents, discover traitorous friends and even read interrogation transcri...

  It has already been a year since I started this book blog – time flies when you’re immersed in other worlds and lives! Whilst this blog doesn’t feature all the books I have read and enjoyed over the past year, in fact it is a fraction of the number, these are my favourites and ones I would recommend the most. And looking back through the posts, I am already planning to re-read several! I realise I haven’t posted any reviews recently, because I have been hungrily devouring books one after the other and not pausing to write reviews. Shocking behaviour, I know! I will try to be better and share my reading enjoyment again. Due to my lack of posts, this one is a bumper edition, with not one, not two, but four reviews! I will keep them brief. I plan to resume my one book review per post tradition after this.   Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce This is Joyce’s fifth novel, and I thoroughly recommend all her others. I was looking forward to reading this, being a fan of h...

Given the title I thought I would really enjoy this book, and I was correct.  I was immediately gripped by the story and the concept and whizzed through the 400 odd pages.  Despite the quite complex nature of the plot and the various theoretical debates, I found it easy to read and completely absorbing. As the title suggests, the novel centres on a man called Harry August who, when he dies, is reborn at exactly the same time and in exactly the same place and circumstances.  As he grows up he starts to remember his previous lives, but none of those relationships or interactions exist or have happened yet in his current life.  He effectively lives for centuries, but only ever within the years of his lifespan. Whilst the story did remind me of Kate Atkinson’s fantastic Life After Life , I found it to also be completely different from it and almost as enjoyable. The novel deals with the inevitable and tricky time-travel dilemma very well and in a very upfront matter-of-f...

  I have to admit I did not initially think this book would make it into my blog, as I only include books I would recommend.  I was not immediately gripped and it took me over 50 pages to get into it – I wondered whether I would make it through all 520 pages.  However, after persevering I was rewarded, becoming absorbed by the story and keen to know both what would happen next and more about the characters.  I even found myself sad to be running out of pages, rather than happy to be finishing it.  Whilst it has its faults – it is by no means perfect and has been accused of being too “preachy” – I would recommend it if the story and themes interest you. The novel is set in Vineland, New Jersey and centres on one particular house.  In modern day the house is occupied by the Tavoularis family who have newly inherited it.  The main character is Willa, a wife and mother who is struggling to adjust to her new home and is beset by worries about how best to ca...

This is yet another impressive debut novel written in an interesting style full of well-developed characters and an engaging, if at times distressing plot.  I have been continually pleasantly surprised throughout the pandemic restrictions by the quantity and quality of debut novels that I have encountered.  Sara Collins will be another author on my list to look out for. Spanning 1812-1826 set in London and Jamaica, the novel opens with Frannie on trial at The Old Bailey.   We soon learn that she is charged with a double murder and nicknamed “The Mulatta Murderess” by the press.   After opening statements and an intriguing glimpse into her current predicament, the reader is whisked back in time to Frannie’s childhood on a sugar plantation in Jamaica, as she begins to write her Confessions. This is not merely a slave story.   It is a Georgian gothic murder mystery with an intricate plot.   It is also a very different type of slave story to ones I have rea...

  Although I had heard of this book, I as usual avoided finding out too much about it, so when I chanced upon it in the ‘recent returns’ section of my local library I did not know what to expect.  I was hooked immediately and devoured it in two days.  It is not a long book and is very fast paced and easy to read.  This is helped by the short chapters, with one word titles reflecting the key theme or element of the chapter.   The central character, Korede, speaks to the reader in a frank, matter-of-fact, straight forward manner which is refreshing and also humorous.  Given the subject matter, which is revealed in the title, you could anticipate a deeper, darker, more psychological tenor to the narrative, but the deadpan style and avoidance of gratuitous gory detail suits the story perfectly.  This is a different kind of crime fiction.   This is also a different kind of African fiction, something the author explicitly states and supports in intervie...

I knew nothing about this book before starting to read it so had no idea what to expect.  I had also not read anything by Setterfield before so was not familiar with her writing style or genre.   I was therefore delighted to be immediately captivated by the story and characters and fell in love with Setterfield’s style.   The novel is set in the nineteenth century in Oxfordshire and takes place along the banks of the Thames.  The river is central to the story and to the characters’ lives.  They have a complicated relationship with the water, as it is both a life-giving necessity and a life-threatening danger.  Setterfield cleverly uses the river to drive the story and also reveal aspects of her characters’ personalities.   The crux of the story is that a 4 year old girl’s body is pulled out of the river.  This has a profound impact on everyone in the local community and they spend a great deal of time pondering, speculating and attempting to work ...

Although on the surface this is a gentle, easy to read, uncomplicated novel, I found it incredibly enjoyable, well written and clever.   Whilst I would not classify it as detective fiction, there is a mystery at the centre of the story, and I eagerly read on, not just to discover the answer, but also to find out more about the characters. The story centres on two children, Grace and Tilly, 10 years old and at the start of their school summer holidays.   Being nice, caring children who are slightly disconcerted by recent events and perhaps driven by a lack of anything else to do, they take it upon themselves to investigate the sudden unexplained disappearance of Grace’s neighbour, Mrs Creasy.   Without giving too much away, Grace hits upon a method for not only finding Mrs Creasy, but preventing anyone else from disappearing, and so their mission begins.   It requires them to “interview” all the neighbours who live on the cul-de-sac, which they cleverly ac...

This is an astoundingly beautiful, heart-rending, captivating story of slavery and empowerment.  As soon as I finished it I wanted to start it all over again.  I also wanted to know more about the Grimké sisters, their lives, their courage and their persistence, as this is based on a true story. The book is set in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 1800s.  The Grimkés are an affluent white family, and so they have slaves as servants.  Their low opinion of and often brutal treatment of their slaves is shocking, but not unexpected in a book of this type.  The story opens from the perspective of Hetty ‘Handful’, a young slave girl, daughter of another Grimké slave, Charlotte ‘Summer’.  Her and her mother dream of freedom, but in the Deep South this seems unlikely. The Grimkés have three daughters, who are expected to marry well, run their own household and own their own slaves.  But middle child Sarah has other ideas.  On Sarah’s 11 th bir...

Being non-fiction this is not my usual reading-for-pleasure choice, but a good friend gave it to me and I was intrigued.  I don’t have anything against biographies, and often enjoy them when I do read them, it just isn’t my natural preference.  And in essence this is an autobiography, albeit focusing on just the one year in the writer’s life.  But it isn’t just about her life, it is also filled with interesting research, facts, interviews and, of course, amusing anecdotes. As you can tell from the title, Helen, a lifestyle journalist living in London, moves to Denmark and charts her experiences during the year, one chapter per month with a theme for each chapter.  As is to be expected, this book is full of cultural insights, language oddities and many faux pas made by Helen. Helen speaks directly to the reader and is very frank and open about her feelings, intentions and mistakes.  Her journalistic training comes through both in the writing style and...

This is an incredibly complex, well written, innovative book which is immensely impressive as it is a debut novel.  Turton set out to create a new type of Agatha Christie-esque novel and I believe he has achieved it.   In classic Christie style there is a death at a party which is taking place in a manor house set within expansive grounds.   And there is a whole cast of crumbling aristocrats, disreputable dandies and disgruntled relations in attendance.   The central protagonist must work out the backstories and motivations of each of the party guests, without arousing suspicion. But that’s not all, far from it.  There are additional mysterious characters lurking about, plenty of secrets, a previous “tragic event” that no-one wants to talk about and our hero has his own issues - questioning his own identity and past whilst dealing with a very peculiar set of circumstances.  This is not simply a murder mystery, it is a hybrid cross-genre novel which p...