Eliza Clark’s second novel charts a journalist’s investigation of a murder that slipped past the tabloid news hounds thanks to it taking place on the night of the UK’s EU Referendum. It is presented as a reissue of a true crime book that, at the time of first publication, was seen as contentious and withdrawn by the publisher. Its author, Alec Z Carelli, is a seasoned hack who formerly reported on crime for a left-wing tabloid.
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Food in all its guises is at the heart of Yuzuki Asako’s Butter (バター), from its availability, preparation, consumption and enjoyment, to its symbolism and use as a means of control. The book starts with a shortage of the title ingredient. Main character Machida Rika, a journalist at a men’s weekly magazine, is visiting her oldest friend Reiko, newly moved to a Setagaya suburb with her husband Ryōsuke. As a gift, in the absence of butter, Rika brings a tub of margarine that claims to be 50% butter. She tells us she can’t tell the difference between margarine and butter and we quickly learn that she has a limited palate, setting the scene for her later encounter with the cook and convicted serial killer Kajii Manako.
Continue readingApril comes around again and with it the first Saturday of the month. Shall we hammer together some links in a Six Degrees of Separation chain?
This month, our host Kate has chosen The Correspondent by Virginia Evans as our starting point. You can find out more about the meme at Books Are My Favourite and Best.
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Reading Wales Month introduced me to two books I might never otherwise have read. Paula chose Charlotte Williams’s Sugar and Slate for Dewithon back in 2022, which is when I borrowed it from the library. Karen and Kath chose it again for Reading Wales Month this year (2026). In between, an artist whose work I love had also written a book called And… A Memoir of My Mother. When I read the synopsis for And, I realised that its author, Isabel Adonis, was the sister of Charlotte Williams. So this year, I decided to read Adonis’s book. In this post, I compare my perceptions of the two books.
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It’s the National Year of Reading in the UK. At work, the library service is running a book bingo challenge, with a theme per month. March’s theme is Cosy Crime. It has been a while since I read anything in this genre and, as I finished my last book earlier than expected, I popped into the library to borrow something. With an eye on adding an extra book to my Reading Wales Month tally as well, I chose The Case of the Dotty Dowager by Cathy Ace. I’d summarise it as easy reading with an interesting locked room mystery at its core.
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When The Cranes Fly South is the debut novel from Swedish author Lisa Ridzén, translated into English by Alice Menzies. It has won a number of awards in Sweden and came recommended by the friend who lent it to me. It’s the story of an older man, Bo, who lives in the rural north of Sweden with his dog, Sixten, and the challenge to maintain his independence that he faces from his son.
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Miki Berenyi’s memoir Fingers Crossed is a rough read at times. It chronicles the dysfunctional childhood of an only child whose parents were more interested in their own happiness than that of their daughter. It features a Nazi-sympathising grandmother who sexually abused her granddaughter. It lays bare the chaos of Berenyi’s coping strategies and the defensive callousness she shows to people who care about her. It calls out the sexism of the indie music scene of the 1990s. For all that, it’s immensely readable.
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Here’s an unusual Reading Wales Month contribution. I’m including it in celebration of the academic institutions in Wales and the contributions they have made to society. I’m an alumnus of Aberystwyth University. When I was there, Aber was a college of the federal University of Wales, along with Bangor, Cardiff, St David’s and Swansea. Aimee Grant is a post doctoral researcher at Swansea University and has written a brilliant guide to how to analyse information contained in documents. She comes at the subject from a social science angle, but what she describes is relevant to all of us in a world of overwhelming information.
The foreword to Doing Excellent Social Research with Documents makes the point that we are creating and consuming written content and images at an increasing rate, across a range of sources that have expanded to include digital sources like social media. The need for skills in critically reading these sources is becoming increasingly important so that we can all “read between the lines” and understand what lies behind these documents, which are considered by Grant “not simply as topics of study but for what they can tell us about the richness of the lives of individuals in a variety of social situations.”
As someone working with documents (I’m an archivist) with a background in Economic and Social History (my first degree that still informs my professional practice), this introduction had me excited for what was to follow. You might not feel as excited as I did, but hear me out.
Continue readingIsabel Adonis is an artist and writer based in North Wales. I first got to know her work as an artist when The Weavers Factory gallery held an exhibition of her show Scraps, Patches and Rags in 2021. The works in the show explored meanings of ‘home’, a theme that is also a strand in And… A memoir of my mother. Here, Isabel reflects on her childhood and her mother’s place in it, alongside an examination of what ‘home’ meant to her mother. It’s a book about fragmentation and division, about how society tries to constrain individuality, and how the search for the true self is almost impossible.
Continue readingAnd so to March’s seventh day and first Saturday. I make that Six Degrees of Separation O’Clock.
This month, our host Kate has chosen Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë as our starting point. You can find out more about the meme at Books Are My Favourite and Best.
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What I Think About When I Think About Reading 