Anna of the Five Towns was the first of Arnold Bennett's novels to be set in the pottery towns of Staffordshire. Through six novels published between 1902 and 1918 he gives a realistic picture of life, industry, religion and love in England’s industrial heartland at the turn of the 20th century. It's rather depressing but if you've read any of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels set in another English industrial heartland, you'll know what to expect.

it's time for another round of the classic club spin and this time I'm hoping to get something in translation.

I'm going for a re-brand of the posts I use to look back at the month just ended. "Reading Wrap Up" was such a dull and uninspiring title I was bored even just writing it into WordPress. So I'm kicking it into touch. Henceforth these monthly (well monthly assuming I remember to write them) will be called "My Reading Life" — I hope the personal touch will make it feel a little less yawn-inducing.

The second novel in a series can often be disappointing. But that's definitely not the case with A Necessary Evil, the follow up to Abir Mukherjee's debut novel A Rising Man set in pre-independence India and featuring a British police officer and his Indian second-in-command. Like the first novel, this one is a murder mystery with oodles of intrigue and suspense.

French Braid is a quiet family saga. There are no shocking revelations or big dramatic moments in the lives of various members of the Garrett family of Baltimore. Instead, Anne Tyler chooses to focus on the smaller stuff; the incidents and ingredients that combine to shape a family. We meet them through a series of snapshots — holidays, reunions, phone calls —over a period of about seventy years.

In three loosely connected stories, The Elephanta Suite features Western travellers who are disturbed and bewildered by their encounters with the "real" India. Their preconceived and somewhat romanticised ideas about the country are overturned once they come face to face with over-crowded streets, beggars, noise and bureaucracy. Instead of an exotic land of spirituality, yoga, temples and ancient traditions, they find poverty, corruption, and stark inequalities between wealthy elites and the urban poor.

This month's prompt for Spell the Month in Books — hosted by Jana of  Reviews from the Stacks —is Something to Savour OR books that have been on your TBR for a long time. Though I have a reasonably large collection of recipe books they're not going to match very well to the letters of September. It was much easier — and more fun — to delve into my TBR spreadsheet.

Environmental campaigners and ego-tripping capitalists clash in Eleanor Catton's Birnham Wood. It sounded promising but it's largely a promise unfulfilled. Birnam Wood — the portable forest that heralds the fall of Macbeth — is the name of an “activist collective” based in Christchurch, New Zealand. They're guerrilla gardeners in essence; taking over waste public land and neglected private plots to grow food crops.

August saw me racing against the calendar, hoping I'd be able to claim success with the #10booksofsummer project. In the end I managed eleven books in total; ten novels and one work of non fiction. I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. I'd be even more pleased if I'd actually written reviews of all of these ... but that's another story. …

From librarians to postmen; watchmakers to doctors: looking through the list of books I've read has thrown up a surprising number of work-related titles. Perfect for this week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl): “Books with Occupations in the Title.” The Whale Caller by Zakes Mda I'm not making this one up. This novel really is about a South African man who spends his time communicating with the whales when they come close into land on their migration to Antartica.

Atmospheric. Psychologically insightful. Eminently readable. The three elements that are the hallmark of Andrew Miller's fiction, are shown in abundance in his latest novel, The Land in Winter. Set during the Big Freeze of 1962-3, The Land in Winter captures the lives of two mismatched recently married couples as they contend with disappointments and resentments in their marriages. As the narrative shifts between them, we learn of their unfulfilled expectations, their frustrations and their resentments.

"What I'm Reading" is my contribution to the WWW Wednesday's meme run by Sam from Taking On a World of Words. The Ws represent three questions: What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? What do you think you’ll read next? What I'm reading now #10booksofsummer has gone so well this year that I'm currently on book 12.

What kind of a person would deliberately set fire to a tinder-dry plantation, causing ten deaths and the destruction of houses and thousands of acres of farmland? In The Arsonist, Chloe'Hooper sets out to answer that question through an account of the investigation into a fire in the Australian state of Victoria on 7 February 2009. That day fire crews and residents in the Latrobe Valley — a farming and coal mining area about 160k east of Melbourne — were on high alert.

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Top Ten Tuesday:  Novels with a High Page Count.” There are plenty of these fat, chunky novels lying unread on my bookshelves. When it comes to choosing what to read next I usually skip over them, reasoning that I just don't have the bandwidth to do them justice right then.

Yes I know this is an update about July and we're already half way through August. I was tempting to skip this month but I gave myself a good talking to this morning and decided late is better than zero. So here goes... July was a really good month. Birthday celebrations for a wonderful 80-year-old lady who is part of our volunteer team at a National Trust property.

Fatal Isles had me reaching for the atlas, so convincing was Maria Adolfsson's depiction of the island nation of Doggerland. Alas there is no such settlement in the North Sea. Between the coastlines of the UK and Denmark, where Doggerland should be, there is just sea. The fictional setting of Doggerland is by far the most interesting aspect of Fatal Islands,

R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface is something of a mash up. Dark comedy meets thriller in a tale which also seeks to ride the topical wave of truth and authenticity in the publishing industry. It begins with two young novelists in Washington DC. Chinese-American Athena Liu, is the toast of the publishing world, an award-winning author who enjoys both critical acclaim and commercial success.

This week's Top Five Tuesday prompt — Books Set in a Specific Time Period — is open to interpretation. Are we talking about a specific date on the calendar? Or a period of time like, say the years of World War One? Or could it be just a span of time; a day, a month etc? I’ve gone for a hybrid approach.

The Good Mistress by Anne Tiernan (April 15th, 2025) is a very immersive and emotional read that will resonate with many readers

Every book in Elizabeth Strout’s series about Lucy Barton feels like an encounter with a set of Matryoshka dolls (aka Russian dolls). You get to the end of each one with a deeper understanding of Lucy...

Every book in Elizabeth Strout's series about Lucy Barton feels like an encounter with a set of Matryoshka dolls (aka Russian dolls). You get to the end of each one with a deeper understanding of Lucy's character, her past and her relationships with family members, but then the next book adds a further level of knowledge and insight. In Oh William…

it's many moons since I did a Top Ten Tuesday post. It proved too difficult to come up with ten titles to match a prompt that didn't interest me. But hanks to Margaret at BooksPlease I've discovered a meme that seems a lot easier. Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, and it is now being hosted by Meeghan at 

Would you know what to do if your blog vanished without explanation? My post explains how to prevent the nightmare of losing all your blog's content.