I've officially been 30 years old for three weeks! For the amount of build-up that inevitably accompanies those milestone birthdays, it's been a relatively uneventful few weeks since the big day. Similar to the profound sense of change that is always a part of New Year celebrations, I had a feeling that everything would be … Continue reading Monday Musing: 14/10/18
"The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it's a kitchen, if it's a place where they make food, it's fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. White tile catching the light … Continue reading Review: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Is anyone else unreasonably excited by the fact that autumn is now officially here? I've spent the whole of summer ready for this seasonal change, not least because the autumnal equinox coincides with my birthday (so double the reason to celebrate)! As I mentioned in one of my most recent posts (8 Books to Conjure … Continue reading A ‘Beginning of Fall’ Book Haul
"We are the memories we don't remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feelings from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting us … Continue reading Review: ‘There There’ by Tommy Orange
I couldn't be more excited for the autumn. It has always been my favourite season and no less so now that I live in the US. If anything, enduring five months of 40C weather has made me even more enamoured with the prospect of turning leaves, wooly scarves, and steaming bowls of soups. To me, … Continue reading 8 Books To Conjure That Cosy Autumn Feeling
"I waited to be told what was good about me [...] All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really jut a waiting room until someone noticed you - the boys had spent that time becoming themselves." There's something about the approach to turning 30 that invites an … Continue reading Review: ‘The Girls’ by Emma Cline
"One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility linked to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of … Continue reading Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Returning to The Book Habit in appropriate style, with a review of Claire Fuller's debut novel Our Endless Numbered Days. I received a copy of this book at the start of the year, prior to its February release.* Despite tearing through it in no time, my PhD work has kept me away from the blog and means … Continue reading Review: Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
My adoration of a good mystery is no surprise. I have written often of my love for the genre, particularly the works of the Queen of Mystery, Agatha Christie. When it comes to crime fiction, I tend to live exclusively in the past. Modern mystery thrillers, in the mould of those by John Grisham, just … Continue reading Review: The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
"The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea." Every so often, … Continue reading Review: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
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