Back in September I wrote this post on curating the perfect beach house library. Well, another month, another season and another friend’s renovation project (my friends are big into tearing down walls!) has just wrapped up. This was a special project in that it’s a house I practically grew up in, owned by a woman who had a huge role in shaping the person I … Continue reading Lake House Library
Was my rave review of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall sequel enough to pique you interest? Or, interest piqued, could you possibly be on a book-buying-ban, attempting to make a dent in that teetering TBR stack on the bedside table? Maybe you never finished Wolf Hall (which, by the way, isn’t necessary to enjoy the sequel). Or do you think historical fiction just isn’t your thing? … Continue reading Simon Vance reads Brings Up the Bodies
He shakes his head. ‘You’ll live.’ He once thought it himself, that he might die of grief: for his wife, his daughters, his sisters, his father and master the cardinal. But the pulse, obdurate, keeps its rhythm. You think you cannot keep breathing, but your ribcage has other ideas, rising and falling, emitting sighs. You must thrive in spite of yourself; and so that you … Continue reading Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel has burst onto my bookshelves and claimed a spot as my new favorite author. I purchased Wolf Hall last year from amazon.uk. It spent a few months on my nightstand – six hundred and fifty pages is a large time commitment and I usually save the heftier tomes for vacations. But Vacant Possession hooked me. Fortunately Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel is … Continue reading Wolf Hall: Parts 1-3 by Hilary Mantel
Vacant Possession is a sequel. Let’s start there. It takes place ten years after the events of Hilary Mantel’s first novel, Every Day is Mother’s Day, and follows the lives of the characters introduced in the first book. I was unaware of this until I’d finished Vacant Possession. Nowhere on my copy does it state that the book is a sequel. In fact, the only … Continue reading Vacant Possession by Hilary Mantel (plot spoilers)
READER AT LARGE 