Author Archives: Lydia Elphick

Lindsey Davis. Finished 23rd February. Recommendation: Part of a series There are two things you may have noticed by now with this blog. One, that I struggle to write reviews (if that’s what you can call them) as soon as I finish a book (see two reviews backdated posts published today), and two, that IContinue reading “Deadly Election”

Bella Mackie. Finished 18th February. Recommendation: Podcast/Instagram I’ve heard this book mentioned many times across Instagram and various podcasts – last year I heard Bella Mackie interviewed on one of my favourite podcasts ‘The High Low’ and have had this book on my to-read list ever since. Mackie’s style is so easy to read, IContinue reading “Jog On: How Running Saved My Life”

Heather Morris. Finished around the 5th of February. Recommendation: My sister Morris’s book recounts the true story of Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jewish man who became the tattooist of the notorious concentration camp in order to survive. It is a record of the horrors and atrocities of the Holocaust, and the parts with the NaziContinue reading “The Tattooist of Auschwitz”

Olga Tokarczuk. 2009 (English translation 2018). Guardian 100 best books of the 20th century Another recommendation from the Guardian article I mentioned before, this book took me a while to get into. The combination of the uni term starting again and the slower pace of this narrative compared to others I’d read in January meantContinue reading “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead”

Lindsey Davis. 20th January. Recommendation: originally from my Mum, but this is one of a sub-series of a series This historical mystery novel is the second of the Flavia Alba mystery series which features the daughter of the informer/private detective Marcus Didius Falco who features in twenty books in another of Davis’s series. I’ve alwaysContinue reading “Enemies at Home”

Helen Dunmore (2001) Finished: Thursday 16th Jan Recommendation: Guardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/21/best-books-of-the-21st-century) Set during the Siege of Leningrad in World War Two, this novel is certainly hard-hitting. I’d read another of Dunmore’s novels ‘House of Orphans’ a few years ago and in both she cleverly moulds fictional characters to realContinue reading “The Siege”

Dolly Alderton (2018). Monday 13th January. Recommendation: a lot of my female friends, and even more of my favourite podcasts. Dolly Alderton is to me and many other women my age a bit of a guru. Her podcast, along with fellow writer Pandora Sykes, ‘The High-Low’, is a regular highlight of my week, and IContinue reading “Everything I Know About Love”

Thomas Hardy (1880). Finished Sunday 5th January 2020 (sorry again a bit of a cheat on this one!). Recommendation: my Dad I think (it’s his favourite Hardy novel) Again this post starts with apologies. Firstly because I started this novel in the summer of 2019, and finally got round to finishing it months later afterContinue reading “The Trumpet-Major”

Author: Margaret Atwood. Date finished: around 29th December (2019, oops). Recommendation: I’m a bit late to the game with this one as the media sensation this book caused has somewhat blown over now, but I got it for Christmas. To start a blog on books I have read in 2020 on a book I finishedContinue reading “The Testaments”

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