...this book attempts not just to catalogue the Seven Wonders, but to comprehend them, to appreciate them as they were first experienced and remembered; to ask why things in general, and these in particular, are wonderful, why they are worthy of wondering. As chance would have it, one in-between-series night in February, I was scrolling … Continue reading The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World | Bettany Hughes
An enemy of baked goods of all kinds, Tolstoy was not one of those insufferable people who breeze through life unencumbered by frustration and anger. Comfortingly enough, he was a person who struggled to understand why, at times, life felt intensely painful, even when nothing that bad was happening. The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons … Continue reading The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature | Viv Groskop
I have been very slowly making my way through this delightful BBC radio collection featuring the works of Dylan Thomas. Some of the recordings feature Thomas himself, but many have been turned into radio or audio plays by Matthew Rhys, a Welsh actor who introduces this collection as well as providing interesting commentary on each … Continue reading The BBC Radio Collection | Dylan Thomas
Kathleen (Kylie) Tennant (1912-1988) was born on 12th March 1912 at Manly, Sydney and died 28th February 1988 at Chatswood, Sydney. By all accounts her childhood was difficult and unstable. She wrote, ‘It toughens you to have fighting parents and I don’t know how people get on who haven’t been reared in a battling Australian … Continue reading Kylie Tennant Memorial
© Brona’s Books 2026 | Pears, Rydal Country Show After a quiet, lazy January with lots of reading time, February (my birthday month) was super busy, full of activity and mini-trips. Reading time dropped off dramatically as I struggled to be in the mood for any one book for long - which is partly why the currently … Continue reading Book Diary | February 2026
Sleep was beginning to finally visit the insomiacs and drunkards of T- in central Manila when a commotion louder than the usual domestic squabbles erupted from the room above Mang Calixto's bakery. I have never been to the Philippines or its capital city Manila, but after finishing Glenn Diaz' Yñiga, I now feel like I … Continue reading Yñiga | Glenn Diaz
This little book is composed of fragmentary notes written by me during the period when I lived in Oleise and Leo Nicolayevitch at Gaspra in the Crimea. They cover the period of Tolstoi's serious illness and of his subsequent recovery. The notes were carelessly jotted down on scraps of paper, and I thought I had … Continue reading Reminiscences of Tolstoy | Maxim Gorky
She was a woman in her late twenties, maybe thirty, even, with eyebrows plucked bare and hairline neatly outlined, her face caked in white powder and her lips painted blood-red, like those of a hound that had just eaten a man. The woman they called O-Riki was slender and of average height. Her freshly washed … Continue reading Troubled Waters | Ichiyō Higuchi
The other day, I discovered an alarming possibility. No, worse: an alarming fact. The alarming fact in question was about IAM's, or involuntary autobiographical memories. As the name suggests, it is a series of spontaneous memories, or flashbacks and in the case sited by Julian Barnes in his latest (and last) novel Departure(s), the patient … Continue reading Departure(s) | Julian Barnes
We are all shards in the smash-up. Our lives, even the unruptured ones, bounce around on the seafloor. For a while we might brush tenderly against one another, but eventually, and inevitably, we collide and splinter. About a decade ago, I started reading Let the Great World Spin (2009) because the owner of the bookshop I … Continue reading Twist | Colum McCann
They show you how to make bombs on the internet. If you know where to look. A year has gone by since last we spent time in the company of Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron. A quiet year to mourn and grieve their loss. No murders or mysteries have occurred in or around Cooper's Chase … Continue reading The Impossible Fortune | Richard Osman
I'm a little behind in posting about these two Historical Fiction prizes, but I was saving it for a week when I needed a 'filler' post. I still have several unreviewed books to write up, but it has been a busy month so far, with not enough time for thinking and writing, so I will … Continue reading Historical Fiction Prizes 2026
The Climate Fiction Prize is gradually becoming one of my favourite prizes to watch even though this is only its second outing. Climate fiction is already one of my prefered genres to read. In fact, most of the contemporary literature I read these days would be described as speculative or eco or climate fiction. Hopefully … Continue reading The Climate Fiction Prize 2026
I am not a bushwalker. I like art exhibitions and grotty little bars. Jane Rawson's opening lines in her introduction, 'On avoiding nature', grabbed my attention straight away. Since moving to the Blue Mountains eighteen months ago almost everyone asks me how many bushwalks I've been on or which bushwalks are the best? I don't … Continue reading Human/Nature: On a Life in a Wild World | Jane Rawson
It’s time for another Classics Club spin. This is the Classics Club's 43rd CC Spin...and mine. What is a CC Spin? Simply pick twenty books that you’ve got left to read from your Classics Club List. Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog before Sunday 8th February. A number from 1-20 will be announced. Read … Continue reading Classics Club Spin #43
