User Profile

Morag

morag@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 5 months ago

Likes Scottish writers, tartan noir, philosophy, politics, memoirs and biographies.

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Morag's books

Stopped Reading

reviewed Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen

Rhys Bowen: Her Royal Spyness (Paperback, 2012, Constable Robinson, imusti) 3 stars

Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, 34th in line for the throne, is flat broke. She's …

Going nowhere

1 star

I made it to chapter 8 and got tired of waiting for the spying to start and the depiction of tartan-walled Scottish bathrooms to end.

Having said that this is a hugely popular series, so what do I know?

Frankie Boyle: Meantime (EBook, Baskerville) 4 stars

Glasgow, 2015.

When Valium addict Felix McAveety's best friend Marina is found murdered in the …

Entertaining

4 stars

Entertaining, but wandering in places. More character than plot, but not in a bad way. Lots of lolz with occasional dipping of metaphorical toes into emotional depths.

reviewed Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O'Farrell: Hamnet (Paperback, 2019, Tinder Press) 4 stars

Drawing on Maggie O'Farrell's long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, …

Beautifully written

4 stars

I generally don't like historical fiction. My last taste of it was Wolf Hall, which I despised. I'm not a romantic either. I should've hated this book, but I didn't. I loved it.

The characters of Agnes and Hamnet are brilliantly imagined, the rest maybe not so much but this story isn't about the others. The prose is beautiful without being overly pretentious.

Trigger warnings: plague; death of a child.

Muriel Spark, A. L. Kennedy: Memento Mori (2018, Little, Brown Book Group Limited) 1 star

Disappointing

1 star

It's a long time since I've been this disappointed with a novel. I had great expectations. Spark's other "well kent" (well known) novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, is one of my all time favourite reads.

Memento Mori has been described as both a comedy and a murder mystery.

There is not one likeable character. The insistence of referring to anyone over the age of 60 as "granny" left me feeling very uncomfortable. (My mum is in her 70s and felt the same - she thought it was because of her age).

I didn't find anything endearing, funny, or ironic about the story. I didn't care what happened to the characters and I didn't care who did it. Skimmed the last half just to get it over and done with.

Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007, Harper Perennial) 5 stars

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Darkmans is an exhilarating, extraordinary examination of the ways …

I set my reading goal for 2022 to 2 books because I joined in December and I've found it difficult to concentrate on reading this year.

Then I choose an 848 page book as my second read. I may not reach my target after all.