Happy weekend, everyone! I’m off to a wedding – for the past five or six years, I’ve been down to one wedding a year. How did I ever have the energy to go to five or so in a year?…

Stuck In A Book Blog

28.08.2025

Trance by Appointment by Gertrude Trevelyan – Stuck in a Book

Recovered Books by Boiler House Press continue their admirable work of bringing out G.E. Trevelyan’s novels and sent me Trance By Appointment back in March. I read it in July and I’m fi…

Stuck In A Book Blog

26.08.2025

The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg – Stuck in a Book

For my second and final entry to this year’s Women in Translation month, I’ve read The Dry Heart (1947) by Natalia Ginzburg, translated from Italian by Frances Frenaye. I’ve read …

Stuck In A Book Blog

25.08.2025

Autocorrect by Etgar Keret – Stuck in a Book

A few years ago, one of my favourite reads was Suddenly, A Knock on the Door by Israeli short story writer Etgar Keret – so when I saw that a new collection had been published, I was keen to …

Stuck In A Book Blog

25.08.2025

Project 24: Books 17 and 18 – Stuck in a Book

Well, we have got ahead of ourselves. But ‘we’ I mean ‘I’. Because the calendar is saying it’s late August, and my Project 24 tally says that September has already end…

Stuck In A Book Blog

25.08.2025

Follow Your Heart by Susanna Tamaro – Stuck in a Book

I wanted to join in Women in Translation month, so was looking around my shelves for possible candidates – and chose Follow Your Heart (1994) by Susanna Tamaro, translated from Italian by Avr…

Stuck In A Book Blog

25.08.2025

#141: Do We Care About Weather in Novels? and Crooked Cross vs The Spring Begins – Stuck in a Book

Sally Carson, Katherine Dunning, and the weather – welcome to episode 141! In the first half, Rachel and I discuss significant weather scenes in novels, and whether knowing about the weather …

Stuck In A Book Blog

10.08.2025

StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany – Stuck in a Book

I had a few days where I couldn’t get into this blog, and the advice I got in various forums was kind but totally incomprehensible to me (PHP error log, who she?) – but the good people …

Stuck In A Book Blog

02.08.2025

Project 24: Book 16 – Stuck in a Book

I’m always excited when a new reprint publishing house pops up – and there are so many out there now, whether imprints from big publishing houses or tiny indies. Obviously I think the B…

Stuck In A Book Blog

30.07.2025

#140: Our 10 Favourite Books from 10 Years – Stuck in a Book

It’s time for our favourite 10 books from 10 years of ‘Tea or Books?’! Rachel and I have looked through the books we read for the first ten years of the podcast and have each pick…

Stuck In A Book Blog

30.07.2025

Huffley Fair by Dorothy Evelyn Smith – Stuck in a Book

Ever since discovering the miraculously good O, The Brave Music by Dorothy Evelyn Smith, I’ve been steadily making my way through her other novels – wondering if anything will be equal …

Stuck In A Book Blog

30.07.2025

Roofs Off! by Richmal Crompton – Stuck in a Book

Ten years ago, I wrote a blog post about my changing relationship with Richmal Crompton. She’d gone from being a favourite author I raced through in my late teens to being an author I felt a …

Stuck In A Book Blog

30.07.2025

StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany – Stuck in a Book

Happy weekend, everyone! I will be hither and thither for much of it, so I’m glad the heatwave is over. I’m also finding myself not super in the mood for reading at the moment, which is…

Stuck In A Book Blog

16.07.2025

Snow Road Station by Elizabeth Hay – Stuck in a Book

It was only towards the end of reading Snow Road Station (2023) by Elizabeth Hay that I realised it was a sequel to an earlier book but, you know what, I don’t think it mattered. I bought it …

Stuck In A Book Blog

14.07.2025

Woman Alive by Susan Ertz – Stuck in a Book

I have only read one Susan Ertz novel before Woman Alive (1935) and it was a good, fairly traditional novel about generations of a family tangled up in domestic disputes and hopes. Nothing very une…

Stuck In A Book Blog

09.07.2025

Project 24: Book 15 – Stuck in a Book

I have a handful of ‘want’ alerts set up at abebooks – books that aren’t currently available anywhere, at least not affordably, so that I get an email when they turn up. It&…

Stuck In A Book Blog

08.07.2025

For Flute and Piccolo by E.H. Lomer – Stuck in a Book

One of the loveliest parts of being Series Consultant for the British Library Women Writers series is getting to speak to the relatives of authors we’re republishing. When the extraordinarily…

Stuck In A Book Blog

06.07.2025

StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany – Stuck in a Book

Man, this hay fever is wiping me out. I’m so tired with it! And that’s even without taking the antihistamines that make me super drowsy (I’m taking the less drowsy ones). This is …

Stuck In A Book Blog

29.06.2025

#139: 10th anniversary special! O Caledonia vs The Sundial, and celebrating 10 years – Stuck in a Book

Shirley Jackson, Elspeth Barker, and your emails – welcome to episode 139 of Tea or Books?! Can you believe we’ve been going for ten years? It’s wild to me! In the first half of t…

Stuck In A Book Blog

24.06.2025

e²-1=0: Peas in a Podcast #22! – Stuck in a Book

It’s episode 22 of Peas in a Podcast, the podcast I do with my identical twin brother Colin! Discover which of us secretly doesn’t think we should do this podcast (it’s him). And …

Stuck In A Book Blog

15.06.2025

Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a Novel by Mark Hussey – Stuck in a Book

Following on from my thoughts on Recommended! by Nicola Wilson, here’s another book so up my street that it feels like a personal favour. Foolishly, I have delayed writing my review for month…

Stuck In A Book Blog

12.06.2025

Recommended! by Nicola Wilson – Stuck in a Book

Sometimes there comes along a book you never even hoped you’d get to read – something so totally up your street that it feels almost like a personal kindness that the author was willing…

Stuck In A Book Blog

10.06.2025

Mr Teddy by E.F. Benson – Stuck in a Book

I have a teetering pile of E.F. Benson novels I’ve not read – he was so prolific, and some of his books aren’t that easy to come across, so I always snap up any that I find in the…

Stuck In A Book Blog

08.06.2025

StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany – Stuck in a Book

Hope you’re having a good weekend! I have a jam-packed one, seeing lots of friends (and also the musical Titanique, which I’m very excited about). Along the way, I’ll be having my…

Stuck In A Book Blog

04.06.2025

Project 24 update (books 6-14) – Stuck in a Book

I haven’t updated you on my Project 24 buying for a good while – and please know that that is absolutely not because I’ve been behaving on that front. In fact, I’m getting a…

Stuck In A Book Blog

01.06.2025

Finishing #ABookADayInMay – Stuck in a Book

I finished A Book A Day In May today with O Caledonia (1991) by Elspeth Baker. Rachel and I will be pitting it against The Sundial by Shirley Jackson in the next episode of Tea or Books?, so I won&…

Stuck In A Book Blog

31.05.2025

The Snake Has All The Lines by Jean Kerr – #ABookADayInMay Day 30 – Stuck in a Book

Back in 2012, I read Jean Kerr’s best-known book, apparently turned into a beloved film, Please Don’t Eat The Daisies. She followed it in 1960 with The Snake Has All The Lines – a…

Stuck In A Book Blog

30.05.2025

A couple of underwhelming #ABookADayInMay choices – Days 28 + 29 – Stuck in a Book

Coming towards the end of A Book A Day In May, I’ve read a couple of books that weren’t particularly bad, but left me pretty underwhelmed. So let’s race through them. One Writer&#…

Stuck In A Book Blog

28.05.2025

Eastwards and Far by Chris Lee-Francis – #ABookADayInMay Day 27 – Stuck in a Book

I think I stumbled across Eastwards and Far (2023) by Chris Lee-Francis on Lee-Francis’s Twitter profile, and was intrigued enough to order a copy pronto. As a memoir of cycling across Canada…

Stuck In A Book Blog

27.05.2025

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion – #ABookADayInMay Day 26 – Stuck in a Book

I have long meant to read Joan Didion, but didn’t really know what her writing would be like. I knew she wrote about grief in My Year of Magical Thinking, but – despite having read vari…

Stuck In A Book Blog

27.05.2025

Help us celebrate 10 years of Tea or Books?! – Stuck in a Book

A super quick mini-episode – well, not really an episode – asking for your contributions to the next episode of ‘Tea or Books?’. It will be TEN YEARS since Rachel and I firs…

Stuck In A Book Blog

26.05.2025

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster – #ABookADayInMay Days 23-25 – Stuck in a Book

I was away for the weekend with my church, and so I thought what better what to efficiently cover off three titles for A Book A Day In May than with a trilogy in one paperback? I was also chatting …

Stuck In A Book Blog

23.05.2025

Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams – #ABookADayInMay Day 22 – Stuck in a Book

Today I finished the audiobook of Careless People (2025), the recent memoir-exposé by Sarah Wynn-Williams about her time at Facebook. After a chapter about surviving a shark attack as a child, seem…

Stuck In A Book Blog

22.05.2025

The Tin Men by Michael Frayn – #ABookADayInMay Day 21 – Stuck in a Book

I’ve read a couple of books by Michael Frayn from later in his career, but it’s quite a departure to read his debut novel – The Tin Men (1965). It is a raucous satire of – w…

Stuck In A Book Blog

21.05.2025

The Swan in the Evening by Rosamond Lehmann – #ABookADayInMay Day 20 – Stuck in a Book

Crossing Day 20 feels like we’re on the home stretch, and I am still really enjoying doing A Book A Day in May – certainly finding it much easier than last year, when my eyes were still…

Stuck In A Book Blog

20.05.2025

#ABookADayInMay – Days 17,18,19 – Stuck in a Book

Unlike Madame Bibi, I am getting behind with my reviewing – I am still managing to finish a book a day in May, and that’s the main thing, but telling you about them is another thing. My…

Stuck In A Book Blog

17.05.2025

#ABookADayInMay: Days 14,15,16 – Stuck in a Book

Playing catch up with some quick thoughts about three books – one of which was excellent, one of which was very good, and one of which is absolutely not my cup of tea. Day 14 – Box Offi…

Stuck In A Book Blog

14.05.2025

Messages From My Father by Calvin Trillin – #ABookADayInMay Day 13 – Stuck in a Book

There is something very reassuring about Calvin Trillin’s non-fiction. In the UK I think he is best known, if at all, as the author of Tepper Isn’t Going Out. That was my first encounte…

Stuck In A Book Blog

13.05.2025

Rabbit Foot Bill by Helen Humphreys – Stuck in a Book

When I was in Canada a couple of years ago, I was on the hunt for Canadian writers – but with the proviso that I wanted them to be writing about Canada. On the plane on the way home, I read o…

Stuck In A Book Blog

12.05.2025

My Late Wives by Carter Dickson – #ABookADayInMay Day 11 – Stuck in a Book

Carter Dickson is the not-especially-hidden pseudonym of John Dickson Carr, and he wrote murder mysteries under both names and a handful more. He specialises in the locked-room mystery, which is on…

home›Stuck In A Book Blog›Books & Literature

Stuck In A Book Blog - Books & Literature

StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany – Stuck in a Book

Trance by Appointment by Gertrude Trevelyan – Stuck in a Book

The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg – Stuck in a Book

Autocorrect by Etgar Keret – Stuck in a Book

Project 24: Books 17 and 18 – Stuck in a Book

Follow Your Heart by Susanna Tamaro – Stuck in a Book

#141: Do We Care About Weather in Novels? and Crooked Cross vs The Spring Begins – Stuck in a Book

StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany – Stuck in a Book

Project 24: Book 16 – Stuck in a Book

#140: Our 10 Favourite Books from 10 Years – Stuck in a Book

Huffley Fair by Dorothy Evelyn Smith – Stuck in a Book

Roofs Off! by Richmal Crompton – Stuck in a Book

StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany – Stuck in a Book

Snow Road Station by Elizabeth Hay – Stuck in a Book

Woman Alive by Susan Ertz – Stuck in a Book

Project 24: Book 15 – Stuck in a Book

For Flute and Piccolo by E.H. Lomer – Stuck in a Book

StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany – Stuck in a Book

#139: 10th anniversary special! O Caledonia vs The Sundial, and celebrating 10 years – Stuck in a Book

e²-1=0: Peas in a Podcast #22! – Stuck in a Book

Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a Novel by Mark Hussey – Stuck in a Book

Recommended! by Nicola Wilson – Stuck in a Book

Mr Teddy by E.F. Benson – Stuck in a Book

StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany – Stuck in a Book

Project 24 update (books 6-14) – Stuck in a Book

Finishing #ABookADayInMay – Stuck in a Book

The Snake Has All The Lines by Jean Kerr – #ABookADayInMay Day 30 – Stuck in a Book

A couple of underwhelming #ABookADayInMay choices – Days 28 + 29 – Stuck in a Book

Eastwards and Far by Chris Lee-Francis – #ABookADayInMay Day 27 – Stuck in a Book

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion – #ABookADayInMay Day 26 – Stuck in a Book

Help us celebrate 10 years of Tea or Books?! – Stuck in a Book

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster – #ABookADayInMay Days 23-25 – Stuck in a Book

Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams – #ABookADayInMay Day 22 – Stuck in a Book

The Tin Men by Michael Frayn – #ABookADayInMay Day 21 – Stuck in a Book

The Swan in the Evening by Rosamond Lehmann – #ABookADayInMay Day 20 – Stuck in a Book

#ABookADayInMay – Days 17,18,19 – Stuck in a Book

#ABookADayInMay: Days 14,15,16 – Stuck in a Book

Messages From My Father by Calvin Trillin – #ABookADayInMay Day 13 – Stuck in a Book

Rabbit Foot Bill by Helen Humphreys – Stuck in a Book

My Late Wives by Carter Dickson – #ABookADayInMay Day 11 – Stuck in a Book

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