Tag Archives: literature
The Diary of an Unpublished Author #6
Dear Diary, Today I’m going to talk about motivation. Perhaps it will start off about writing, but I think it will end up being about life, as inevitably everything does. The two are intrinsically linked, you see – writing and life. In many ways my writing is my life; it is, quite honestly, the most important […]
Review: The Woodlanders, Thomas Hardy
I embarked upon my fourth Hardy novel in the wake of another viewing of the wonderful Far from the Madding Crowd, hoping there might be a little happiness in it for its characters – praying for more Bathsheba than Tess. The Woodlanders is marvellously Hardy-esque and in that there is something comfortable and familiar. There is the usual […]
Review: How to be a Heroine, Samantha Ellis
The third book on my Summer Reading List. On a pilgrimage to Wuthering Heights, Samantha Ellis found herself arguing with her best friend about which heroine was best: Jane Eyre or Cathy Earnshaw. She was all for wild, passionate Cathy; but her friend found Cathy silly, a snob, while courageous Jane makes her own way. […]
Review: The Chimes, Anna Smaill
The second book in my Summer Reading List. A boy stands on the roadside on his way to London, alone in the rain. No memories, beyond what he can hold in his hands at any given moment. No directions, as written words have long since been forbidden. No parents – just a melody that tugs […]
The Diary of an Unpublished Author #4
Dear Diary, Let’s talk for a moment about rejection. What does it mean, exactly, to have somebody tell you that your work isn’t good enough? That it’s not exactly what they were looking for, that they don’t feel passionately enough about it to offer you representation. That they couldn’t find an agent who felt strongly […]
Review: Reasons to Stay Alive, Matt Haig
The first book in my Summer Reading List. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FEEL TRULY ALIVE? Aged 24, Matt Haig’s world caved in. He could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over an illness that almost destroyed him and learned to live […]
Review: The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn’t believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure […]
Review: Room, Emma Donoghue
Jack is five. He lives with his Ma. They live in a single, locked room. They don’t have the key. Jack and Ma are prisoners. Room by Emma Donoghue is an extraordinarily powerful story of a mother and child kept in isolation, and the desire for, and price of, freedom. Room had been on my […]
Review: Wild, Cheryl Strayed
At twenty-six, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s rapid death from cancer, her family disbanded and her marriage crumbled. With nothing to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to walk eleven-hundred miles of the west coast of America and to do it alone. She […]
Poetry Corner | Poem #13: I Was Ice
An oldie but a goodie. In my eyes anyway.
Bethany Wren 