Booksnob

LATEST ARTICLES ( 295 )

• The Half-Crown House by Helen Ashton

  

  The premise of this wonderful, and inexplicably out of print, mid century novel is so far up my street I can’t believe I hadn’t come across it before last week. Read more

  Posted on 19 February 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• London’s Notable Women: Amelia Edwards

  

  Amelia Edwards (1831-1892) was a remarkable woman with a great deal of energy, curiosity and a pioneering spirit. A true polymath, she began writing from a... Read more

  Posted on 30 January 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Dramatic Reading

  

  The National in lockdownI didn’t realise how much I love the theatre until I couldn’t go anymore. I took it for granted that I could wander down to the National... Read more

  Posted on 18 January 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Books of 2020

  

  If anything good can be said to have come out of 2020, it’s that I had more time to read. I made a concerted effort to read from my own shelves last year (thoug... Read more

  Posted on 04 January 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Merry Christmas!

  

  Here are some photos of the Christmas lights in London to cheer you up and wish a Merry Christmas to you all. I know it will be a strange Christmas for many of... Read more

  Posted on 24 December 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Reading from My Shelves: October

  Books started: 9Books finished: 6Books abandoned: 2Books kept on the shelf: 6October was a bumper reading month due to my much-needed two weeks of half term. Read more

  Posted on 10 November 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• London’s Notable Women: Helen Gwynne-Vaughan

  

  Dame Helen Gwynne Vaughan by Philip de LaszloThe second in my series of women honoured with Blue Plaques in London by English Heritage is Helen Gwynne-Vaughan... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Benefits by Zoe Fairbairns

  

  Last week I was on holiday in Devon, and while browing a lovely second hand bookshop in Topsham (a very pretty town on the River Exe estuary – well worth a... Read more

  Posted on 27 October 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Talking About Women

  I’ve been a feminist for as long as I can remember. A slow, simmering anger at the way women are treated as second class citizens in society has bubbled... Read more

  Posted on 11 October 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Reading from My Shelves: September

  Books started: 4Books finished: 3Books abandoned: 0Books kept on the shelf: 2It’s been a slow reading month again here. I am continuing to struggle with... Read more

  Posted on 06 October 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• London’s Notable Women: Lilian Lindsay

  

  Lilian Lindsay, by Kathleen WilliamsI have been taking photos of English Heritage’s blue plaques featuring women for quite some time now, meaning to research... Read more

  Posted on 27 September 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Reading from My Shelves: August

  

  Books started: 5Books finished: 4Books abandoned: 0Books kept on the shelf: 4My reading slowed down enormously in August as I spent three weeks on holiday with... Read more

  Posted on 06 September 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Reading from My Shelves: July

  Books started: 12 Books finished: 11 Books abandoned: 1 Books kept on the shelf: 8  The summer holidays are here and as I write, I’m sitting in a cabin perched... Read more

  Posted on 04 August 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

  

  Further to my previous post on Penguin cover designs, Penguin have been producing some very beautifully designed, themed collections of books over the past few... Read more

  Posted on 28 July 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Penguin by Design

  

  I’ve been enjoying looking through a few of my coffee table books lately; I’m very good at buying exhibition catalogues and art books, but as they’re not very... Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Travel: Hastings

  

  When Samuel Johnson said ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’ he obviously hadn’t lived through a pandemic when everything that makes London... Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Reading from My Shelves: June

  Books started: 14Books finished: 8Books abandoned: 2Books kept on the shelf: 5June. Half way through the year. It doesn’t seem possible, somehow. Read more

  Posted on 08 July 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Elizabeth Jane Howard

  

  When I started reading my way through the unread books on my shelves in alphabetical order, someone asked me what I’d do when I had more than one book to read b... Read more

  Posted on 25 June 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Notes from the City: Lockdown, Continued

  

  May was a record breaking month in the South of England; the hottest and sunniest since records began. Day after day, week after week, London basked under a... Read more

  Posted on 06 June 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Reading from My Shelf: May

  Books started: 14Books finished: 9Books abandoned: 4Books kept on the shelf: 3It’s been a long, sunny month, filled with lazy afternoons in the garden and... Read more

  Posted on 31 May 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE