I am an avid reader living Derby, slightly less north of where I was, North of Hadrian’s Wall.
My obsession is reading books – especially historical and 20th century crime fiction. I review reprints for Shiny New Books and I much prefer real books to ebooks. If you want to contact me directly, please go to my contact page here.
I have collected the full set of Persephone books (hands off, daughter!), enjoy Slightly Foxed Quarterly and their limited editions and push all sorts of borrowing limits at my local libraries. Everyone assumes that no book sale, second hand book shop or general book source is safe from me… I particularly enjoy murder mysteries on a purely fictional basis – the search for the perfect murder continues!
I started this blog because everyone gets an earful about the books I enjoy or dislike, and I thought I would inflict my thoughts on the world. And if a little bit of autobiographical stuff creeps in, well, I’ll try and make it interesting…
Happy Reading!
Northern Reader 
Im not that much of a online reader to be honest but your blogs really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your site to come back later. Cheers daeefcaagkfd
I’m slightly jealous of your full set of Persephones, although having considered buying the full set as it was a good few years ago, I realised there are some I would never want to read (I am Feeble, so William, An Englishman, for example, is off-bounds). Happy reading! I love grubbing around in sales and second hand shops and charity shops for lovely books, too.
I do know what you mean about being a bit feeble and finding books a bit too grim!! Like all sets of books, some are more to my taste than others, but my completest urges usually win out (and there are some books that I have still to actually read…)
This will sound odd… I did a search to see how common my name is, and stumbled onto your blog. In case you’re wondering – it seems to be a quite common name. I plan on reading your blog, and adding your books to my reading list. We’ll, the ones you enjoy at least. I’m always looking for new books to read. I hope you have a fabulous 2017!! Cheers!!
I’m not really on WP. I’m over at http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com
Hello, Joules. I’ve come to you by way of the Facebook Angela Thirkell Appreciation group. Looking forward to enjoying your bookish posts in future.
Welcome to the blog! As you will probably see, I have tackled many Thirkells – and I think that there are more to come.
How do I sign up for your blog?
I notice that you don’t describe and critique the writing, only the story. Why?
There should be a “Follow” box on the right hand side of the screen when you view a post.
I don’t critique the writing style as I think a lot of people read the reviews for an indication as to whether they like the story. I tend to be quite general, such as alluding to the pace, the use of humour, the level of detail, the choice of first person or third person narration etc. I think that is a valid approach, as sometimes even defining the genre can be difficult – and perhaps challenging assumptions that, for example, historical romances can be written off, by pointing out that they are often well written, incredibly well researched and feature strong women who do not succumb to attractions at the first sign of interest. I also keep most of my reviews to a certain length, though I admire the longer and more considered reviews that others write!
Hi! Just popped by to check out your very interesting blog. I, too, am addicted to complete sets of books, although there’s a Persephone reprinted novel written in verse (Arthur Clough? something about a voyage?) that I will most likely never read (I know I’d be intellectually enriched if i did so but . . . .) I also like Slightly Foxed although, thank heaven, I’ve been able to resist most of the reprints except for Rosemary Sutcliffe’s Eagle of the Ninth Series (must have acquisitions!). Which brings me to my third point — love the photo of Hadrian’s Wall, which I’ve always wanted to see!
Sorry – missed this comment! We collected the Eagle of the Ninth set as my husband is obsessed with the Wall – he walked it several years dgo so it was a natural choce to head my blog!