And my haul was just three old Penguins (got to think of the weight of my suitcase!) 😋

My first trip out of New Zealand in three years - hello again to Melbourne 😍 And hello to this gorgeous second hand bookshop in Sassafras in the Dandenong Ranges. I should have taken a photo of the wardrobe door at the back of the shop - the kids section you get to by stepping through the mirror on the wardrobe!

There‘s finally enough sunshine and warmth to read outside again. And the latest book in my favourite series just came in at the library. Serendipity! Also tea in the awesome mug @Rissreads gave me! 😘

Thoroughly enjoyed this chunkster on audio. My first Henry James! I was impressed with his tackling the constraints on a young woman‘s independence in his era. I loved the writing, the gentle irony, the perceptiveness, the really thorough dissection of motivations and psychology. So much is shown in conversation, each strictly moderated by convention. Complicated villains, complicated victims - I was held in trance.

Thoroughly enjoyed this - my first ever novel from Trinidad and Tobago. We follow Yejide, a young woman bound to her ancestral home by family ties despite dysfunction, and Darwin, a young Rasta man, pushed into breaking his vows, leaving his mother and moving into the city for work. As their stories circle each other, supernatural forces are at work. @Reggie this reminded me a little bit of Mama Day 😍. This would make a good spooky read for ⬇️

I was looking for a new detective series (not cosy but more character driven than thrilling) and this was just the ticket! I really enjoyed the isolated rural setting, the three women sharing a house while doing a wildlife survey, and how the many threads of their personal lives gave so many possibilities for “whodunnit”. Vera was a prickly obstinate source of joy when she finally turns up. I‘ve ordered the 2nd one already 😁

Friday flowers Cindy! @Cinfhen Except I bought them@on Monday…. Got excited that it‘s Spring here and there are lilies in the shops (not in my garden - my garden is all agaves and grasses and hebes - hardly any flowers)

There is a book in this photo. Not my book. My daughter is studying Art History and my art teacher brother in law lent her this huge book on Raphael.

More photos from Otautahi Christchurch - botanical gardens… daffodils are out!
This book was a delight. My 2nd Spark novel; this one more humorous than The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie but it still has a dark undercurrent & she still skewers a few personality types with sharp descriptions. It also reminded me of Excellent Women & Lolly Willowes in that I love a woman who, despite appearances, refuses to stay in the box she‘s expected to fit in!

I can‘t believe it‘s been 6 years - and nearly 3 of them in the midst of pandemic and upheaval. So many wonderful Littens have made this place a pocket of joy and wisdom for me through it all. Thank you all so much. 💕 Special shout out to @Reggie @Cinfhen @CarolynM @Lindy @TrishB @batsy @LeahBergen @Cathythoughts @Ruthiella @shawnmooney @merelybookish @BarbaraBB @Billypar @andrew61 @Megabooks @rockpools @vivastory @Rissreads

A lovely spot to read for an hour in the Spring sunshine - and a lovely book to read. This is Victoria Square in Otautahi, Christchurch.

Definitely one of my best reads of the year. It‘s a ghost story, a love story, a story of a bookshop & the community of staff & customers, it‘s about the inheritance of white colonisation & trauma, about the restorative power in indigenous heritage, a story of family, of pandemic, of the outcry to a murder. It‘s warm, its loving, it‘s human, filled with our flaws and our healing. It‘s like a good bowl of soup made by someone who loves you.

I think this is probably the most beautiful library in New Zealand! Turanga was built in 2018 to replace the central library in Otautahi Christchurch which was demolished after the 2010 earthquakes. Turanga is the name chosen to reflect the ties to whakapapa (lines of descent, ancestral values), history and regional community the library serves. And a good place to finish my book while I wait for my lunch date 😊

Haul from Smiths Bookshop: I bought my first Folio - Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. Such a striking cover. Then a second hand Folio of Agnes Grey and a second hand paperback novel by a NZ writer Robin Hyde - her books are quite hard to come by.

Having a little trip to Otautahi Christchurch - and found this lovely bookshop. Smiths Bookshop at The Tannery. It has both new and secondhand books - the secondhand books are mostly non fiction or rare. Small but precious haul to come. 😍

Really enjoyed this book and learnt a lot about Deaf culture and the inequities in how Deaf people are treated by a society that expects everyone to be hearing. Told from the POVs of two deaf teenagers and the headmistress of their Deaf school. I most enjoyed the teenagers perspectives and how their family dynamics played out. Including information about ASL and Deaf history in between chapters was a great addition.⬇️

Spring morning and the sky is beautiful!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and Groff‘s writing. I think she did a great job of creating a fantastical twist on a real history, a feminist fantasy if you will, of an incredibly strong abbess and her powerful but hidden world of women. For me personally, the second half of the book began to feel a little “one note” but I think Groff is exploring ⬇️

For the past year I‘ve struggled to get my 12 year old reading for fun again - just trying to find books that engage him - he‘s so picky! Thank god for these two series which he has been devouring over the past six weeks - highly recommended if you have a tween or teen that needs something as fast moving and compelling as Hunger Games etc.

I loved this. I‘d seen the movie and loved that too - but this really showed me a lot more of Eilish (the protagonist) inner thoughts and made me consider a couple of the relationships in a new light. I liked the way Toibin doesn‘t explain everything about Eilish to the reader, let‘s us sit with the little inconsistencies that make up a life. And his writing is just lovely. Two books in and he‘s fast become a favourite author.

It‘s very hard to talk about a third book in a series. So I‘m just going to say it‘s very good! Okorafor blows my mind in the way she envisions alien species and alien cultures as well as Earthly ones. And yet it‘s a tight short series with plenty of plot. @Reggie I see what you meant with your previous comment!

Thanks for putting this on my radar @Cinfhen it was such a delight to revisit the eighties and some of my favourite movies and actors. Rob Lowe has such a great voice as well as telling great stories, and I‘m impressed with how he turned his life around. It was just the breath of fresh air I needed! Now I‘m going to go watch The Outsiders again and read “whatever happened to” articles about a whole lot of actors I loved.

Book two in The Scholomance series. This was really enjoyable although I did find some of the interior monologue got repetitive in the middle. This was made up for by so many monsters (!!) and a really good depiction of how group dynamics shift and change. I‘m really looking forward to Book 3. If you liked Gideon the Ninth you might like this series - slightly softer on the scary bits and more YA though.

Thank you @Dragon for the heads up about this audio book. I‘ve loved Flavia de Luce but never thought to try the audio. Sophie Aldred was just perfect for the voice of Flavia and her sisters (IMO). Exactly what I needed - some light mystery, & a snowy Christmassy one at that! 🎅🤶🎄Like most light mystery series, a lot of the love is for the deepening understanding of the characters over time - I loved being back with them in Buckshaw House.

I‘ve bailed on the last 3 books I‘ve picked up (it‘s not you books, it‘s me) so I jumped to the second book in the Binti series knowing it would be short, engaging and thoughtful. It was! The Binti series is amazing for imagining a future universe with space travel and alien interaction but also probing the mystery/foreigness that other cultures on earth remain to each other.⬇️

I‘m still singing the praises of Blackout, albeit that it‘s LONG…. but I‘ve never felt so entirely immersed in 1940s London by any other book #letterB and of course Crossing to Safety is a gem of a book I need to reread every few years #letterC

#alphabetgame @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Thanks for the tag @rubyslippersreads sorry I‘m so slow!

Have to give a shout out to one of my favourite reads of the past 5 years.

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks #alphabetgame #letterA

Anyone who would like to have a go, consider yourself tagged!

A really lovely read as recommended by @CarolynM and @Rissreads A daughter invites her mother to join her on a literary tour of London - a last minute change when her friend can‘t go. Her mother has never left Australia before and the pair are somewhat estranged after a trauma in the family history. Each day of the tour we see from the mother and then the daughter‘s POV, showing how very different their perspectives are. They both think deeply ⬇️

This was huge fun. It gave me Carry On vibes (Rainbow Rowell) but this takes itself much more seriously and there are Way. More. Monsters. God I loved the monsters and the complicated architecture of this hellish school which is like a demonic Hogwarts 😂 If you don‘t do YA definitely try Novik‘s fairytale retellings instead which are gorgeous. And if you liked this but could go much darker may I recommend Gideon the Ninth 😍

In books we experience all life vicariously

@LeahBergen I‘m loving this book! Your reviews often make me look for out of print books and authors and if I find one I‘m so excited they jump to the top of my TBR. The local library had one, nearly falling apart, copy of this 😇

I loved this. I‘ve read a spate of novels (and now this memoir) of young Asian women losing their mothers lately - and they added something extra to reading this. A layering effect of different experiences. This one is so raw and honest - having been alongside my step sisters terminal illness I appreciate that. Lots of insight into having a mixed heritage here too and how that adds complication into the relationship with an immigrant parent.

I read this in one sitting which is unusual for me, even for a short book, as I was so hooked by the protagonist and her emotionally detached tone. This is almost stream of consciousness as our protagonist relates her thinking over a short period of time as she wrestles with making decisions about her relationship and her job. ⬇️

Do you remember sending me this book @Cinfhen ? I finally read it and it was great! It‘s about a bunch of fairly well off, dysfunctional siblings, waiting on an inheritance that most of them have a pressing need for due to bad financial and relationship decisions. There are a lot of other more likeable characters in here too which evens things out - almost an assemblage of individuals making decisions that either harm or help others. ⬇️

Thank you so much for this book @Reggie it was such a page turner! I was desperate to get home today to finish it. This is a mind blowing ride from 1012 Mayan civilisation to 2012 Belize to a post climate disaster 3012 nomadic civilisation. In each setting we are following two to three characters questing to find their truth, god, & transformation. There is tension and adrenaline in each timeline but it is also philosophical & thought provoking⬇️

This looks like a mystery but really it is a history book. The Road Hill murder in 1860 England was perhaps the first time that a whole nation became obsessed with a crime, and the first time that the role of a detective inquiring into the privacy of a middle class family caused controversy. Summerscale lays out the mystery in great detail and the police and detective proceedings following but she also looks at the reporting ⬇️

I picked this up in a library sale without knowing anything about it. The writing is lovely, there‘s a sense of space & melancholy, of lonely exploring a new city. Jung Yoon is a university student, living alone & burdened by grief. She finds herself mesmerised by a strange girl and boy she meets in philosophy class. Each of them carries a burden; is healing even possible when they are living in the midst of political upheaval, protests & ⬇️

In 1924 a young Jean Rhys (then Ella Williams) was in Paris, in some need of rescuing as her husband was in jail. Ford Madox Ford (the famous novelist) and his partner (and mother of his child) Stella Bowen took her in. Quartet is the fictionalised retelling of what happened next.
Rhys wrote this just a few years after and it is remarkable to feel her helplessness and then her rage. Memorable for its imagery and sheer emotion ⬇️

Just me, the rain, ED and COVID for the past two days. Nothing like forced isolation to get you through a 600 + page biography! I loved it. I had wanted to place Emily‘s writing in context of community and cohorts and family and domestic detail which this really does well. Habegger has his idea of who “Master” is, i think it remains a mystery myself. And isn‘t that fitting! The work here on her family is thorough and well balanced I think ⬇️

I seem to be living in the land of #chunksters lately. Still on an ED kick after reading her letters. Thought I‘d start with this biography which is said to be the most thorough and then I‘ll check out something more modern for a different perspective. See you in 630 pages!

I loved the writing in the first half of this book. It really felt like it was going to be a 5 star book for me, the story of Leila as she lies dying and remembering her past and meeting each of her friends. However the rapid fire nature of each episodic chapter, and the introduction and quick summation of each friend‘s back story left me wanting more. Once it got to the “Body” section of the story ⬇️

I listened to this as read by Samuel West who was the perfect narrator. Most people have heard of this, it won the 1990 Booker Prize. It‘s a deep dive into nineteenth century poetry and modern day (well 1980s!) literary academics, particularly a pair of researchers, Roland and Maud who discover some hidden letters. There‘s mystery, romance, academic politics, feminist theory and a lot of 19th century style poems. ⬇️

Two thirds through this audio #chunkster which I‘m thoroughly enjoying and 100% through the chocolate berry waffle that my daughter bought me for lunch 😂😂 As good as it looked!

This was a great fantasy romp, with a lot of drama to propel the plot along. The set up is enticing with an unusual almost orphaned girl, the ward of a rich man in a house full of artefacts who discovers a special power. A great one day read but I really felt this could have been a 5 star book but missed the mark. In comparing it to Addie LaRue I think, for me, it‘s a lack of complexity in the characters. ⬇️

This little book is really for the super fans of ED (as I am!) It takes a handful of themes and then gives you sections of EDs letters that relate to the theme. The difficulty is there is very little biographical information in here so you don‘t really understand who she is writing to or what her relationship is with that person. It was nice to get a feel for the domestic details of her life - but I think this is best read alongside a biography.

My first Elizabeth Taylor and it was marvellous. And it fits with my unexpected theme this year of reading about women in retirement! I worried that I might have read too many takes on this theme but Mrs Palfrey was quite different. I won‘t say much because it is quite little and I don‘t want to spoil it, but it really touched my heart. 5 stars 😍

I really liked Batuman‘s writing and many of the protagonist Selin‘s reflections on the world, and the way she articulated her awkwardness or lack of fit with it. I also liked the absurdist feel to much of this (and isn‘t life truly absurd?!) However the amount of time spent on the obsession element of the novel just made me feel tired! It felt repetitive and maybe that was the intention. A so-so but I‘m still interested in this author

Well this was everything I needed - an adrenaline filled, diverse, good guys versus bad guys space adventure. Imagine Firefly but most of the crew are aliens. Or Becky Chambers Wayfarer series with the adrenaline amped up. Or Murderbot with more aliens and no cyborgs. And the crew are currently running a gourmet restaurant. What more enticement do you need?

Awww! Look what came in the mail 😍 Thank you so much Carolyn @CarolynM The book looks lovely and it‘s exciting that it‘s the inaugural winner of the Novel Prize. Your card is beautiful and the chocolate looks so good. It‘s named for the Mornington Peninsula and I have been there when my sister used to live in Mount Eliza. What a lovely surprise and today I went for a belated birthday lunch with a few friends so it felt like a second birthday 😘

This was sarcastic, quirky and adorable in equal measure. Such a change for me to read a book set so definitively in my own city - it places action on specific streets, references NZ brands, uses Kiwi slang & a little Maori.
Greta and Valdin are a mid twenties, angsty, brother and sister living in central Auckland. They‘re both queer, part Maori, part Russian, and part of a chaotic and complex family.⬇️

I don‘t usually read the acknowledgements but these are brilliant. 😂😂
“Thank you to the surprisingly high number of people who have approached me to enthuse about my illustrious poetry career. I don‘t know who you have confused me for but I am happy for them, their publications and the great performance at the gallery”

This is a difficult book to describe so here is the start of the New Yorker review for it back in 2005 to help me out!

There is something about John Bergers writing that is contemplative, perceptive but kind. The way he connects with the world and shares it has a kind of grace. Here he is an elderly man and using the contrivance of meeting and conversing with different ghosts to work out some philosophy or life lessons. ⬇️

Well this was a lot of fun as my friends @batsy and @CarolynM had said it would be! A mystery romance starts in a bookstore (what could be better!) with a post WW1 London setting.
I love KJ Charles but my favourite is still The Magpie Lord - I do love a bit of magic with my historical romances! If you haven‘t tried KJ Charles and don‘t mind the 🔥🔥you should try one of these #romantsy