Foreknowledge of what awaited me on Peterborough railway station would have had me packing a bag and going to the bus depot, hitchhiking even or getting a taxi to another town. I could have gone to East Midlands or Norwich Airport or even down south to Stansted or Luton. I could have got an Easyjet flight - hell, if I'd known I was fleeing for my life, I might have even risked Ryanair.
Heh!
Darkness moves like an ocean above the roofs and streetlights.
I really love Sarah Hall.
I'm on an ice hockey romance jag*, but this one starts a new "billionaire" type series (with a crossover linking characters from the previous NY team series by the same author). I don't know why, but the billionaire theme is not my thing (but maybe it works for you?)
*Despite knowing less than nothing about the sport.
...there wasn't any sex in the Soviet Union...
!!
Although lots of this book was bleak, I loved this bit about Hampstead ponds.
On the bunkers built under communism in Albania - we have one left over from WW2 down the road.
This book comes with a side order of seasonal cold!
pickThis book was so bleak! Young woman leaves an unsatisfying life on Earth, but it turns out there are disadvantages to life on a new colony too...
(Picture: view from Southport pier)
This book is pretty close to the bone re mental health and "passing for normal".
pickLong (but when's the final book out?)
...she felt their flickering attention like the touch of a snake's tongue...
What does a snake's tongue feel like?
pickImpressive graphic memoir that tells the author's story of an undiagnosed childhood illness.
Love these chapter headings...
...my love of reading and study stood alone, untainted by any personality traits that could conceivably make it pay off. Getting along in the groves of academe required a gift of manipulating people, a willingness to attend meetings, a tolerance for male hens, humility in the presence of important alumni...
Every plot was constructed on a solid foundation of free-floating female guilt.
With everything that was happening in the world, all Sal could do was obsess about a stupid man. ‘Forget him,‘ I said. I wish she had. Or I wish I had taken her more seriously. But I took over organising the airport protest, and I was so busy co-ordinating that, and helping set up the Recycle Fashion shows, I didn‘t even stop to think. It‘s one of the things I regret most in my whole life.
This isn't going to end well, then, is it...
Went to visit a much loved bookshop in Edinburgh to find the owners had sold up and the shop had a new name (but fortunately, the stock was as great as ever!)
had driven her into a bizarre form of heresy: Christianity reminded her of places like Georgia.
We think out hearts break only from endings...
Really excited to read this one, as read the original trilogy many years ago now!
...we would often see teenage girls taking their head scarves out of their backpacks and covering their hair as they approached our apartment complex. My dad would blurt out a mocking statement that had become common among older people from the mosque—it translated to “Cover up, our people are coming.” I would smile to myself, relishing the private kinship I felt with those girls.
'You passed the information on,' Ruby said. 'You've committed treason. Aren't you worried about being executed?'
'Me?' Her eyes were wide. 'I died of a brain haemorrhage this morning, remember? Nobody's going to execute me.'
Gorgeous book displays at Salt's Mill, Saltaire.
Amid all the mayhem, I marvelled at how my mother had managed to find a cake when all the shops were either closed or vandalized. I was even more shocked that she had made it home safe, unaffected by the tear gas or the rioters who were setting fire to everything in sight, the thick fumes permeating our house through the roofless courtyard where everyone had gathered. To a seven-year-old, it seemed the world was coming to an end.
...for some of us, books are as important as anything else on earth.
This book on writing is every bit as good as everyone on LT said it was (I meant to pick it up sooner).
Gorgeous bookshop in The Piece Hall, Halifax. So many books, so little £ to buy books... (I bought a Xmas gift)
It's very wet here, but still, gorgeous location for a library!
This made me laugh - ironic note.
Her tone was amiable, or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part, because she was a fine-looking woman, and i always tended to think the best of attractive women, which, when you thought about it, was rather an Achilles heel for a detective. ‘What brings you into town?‘
As you can probably tell, I need to think about new shelves and/or having a clear out. Trying to catalogue things first on LT and rediscovering some of my uncatalogued books!
Outside he could hear the brass band of the despertà passing through the nearby streets as dawn rose over the city. Sleep was all but forbidden during Fallas, and each neighbourhood made sure that none should offend even unwittingly by sending a musical band out to play as loudly as possible during the first hours of daylight.
Red thread!
Mysterious annotations: what does the arrow mean?
(Library copy)
Do I need to be told, at my age, that Santa doesn't exist?
Some writers have observed that exile is like an amputation...
Not to be able to get married in your own country...
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so-so
