AvidBards
Books

‘Sadie’ Audiobook Review

Finding an audiobook that I want to listen to is always a tricky business. Just like how I can be picky about the books I want to read, I have certain preferences when it comes to audiobooks. From the narrator to the genre there is a lot I consider before choosing an audiobook. Personally, I tend to find crime and detective stories to be the most engaging in audiobook form. I have talked about my love for the audiobooks of Joy Ellis’ “DI Jackman and DS Evans series” before. However, when it came to Courtney Summer’s Sadie it was not…

View Post
Books

2018 Man Booker Prize Winner

Giving up the standards of literary prizes At the end of 2018, on October 16th, the 2018 Man Booker Prize was announced, and by a unanimous vote was awarded to Anna Burns for Milkman. Now you might be thinking that the end of February might be slightly late to talk about the award winner. And to be perfectly honest, I have been putting off this post. Simply because, while the novel received many praises, I could not and did not finish it. The experimental novel tells the story of an unnamed middle sister who is harassed by an older married…

View Post
Books

“The Haunting of Hill House”: Haunting and Tragic

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson – Book Review The name “Hill House” has definitely become more popular in the last year, in part thanks to the release of the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House. But before it was a 10 part series, it was a book by Shirley Jackson. Moreover, it was considered one of the scariest horror novels of the 1950s and 60s. Shirley Jackson was an American author who doubled as a housewife. Stories were her way of keeping herself entertained. And not only did she succeed to keep herself entertained but so too the countless of readers…

View Post
Books

New Year’s Resolutions Made Smarter

Book Review: Instant Wisdom Author: Beth Burgess                                  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐                          ISBN: 9 780957 321731 Christmas is over and we are officially in the 2018 homestretch. And that means it’s that time of the year for New Year’s resolutions! (Woo, cue festive fanfare) I know, I know! How can you be thinking of resolutions when you’re so full from Christmas dinner that you’re dealing with brain fog? It’s a difficult one. While I’m not…

View Post
Books

Waking Gods (Themis Files Book 2) – Book Review

Following from Sylvain Neuvel’s debut novel, Sleeping Giants, I took the first chance I could to go buy the next in the series of the Themis Files. Waking Gods was as much an excitement to read as the first book was (read my review of Sleeping Giants, here). So, of course, after tearing through it, I knew I had to write another review for it. Though in all honesty, I struggled with writing this review, mainly because the story is so engaging and complex simultaneously that I find it hard to describe it without including spoilers. With that said, Here…

View Post
Books

Canongate Myth Series Review: Jeanette Winterson’s “Weight”

For the first review in the Canongate Myth Series I chose to pick up Jeanette Winterson’s novella, Weight. Winterson has an interesting reputation as a writer of being completely unpredictable and incredibly insightful, which is a description that perfectly sums up Weight. Weight retells the story of Atlas, who carried the world on his shoulders and Heracles, the half-god hero, from Greek mythology. Already, by choosing to rewrite such popular stories, Winterson was in for a challenge. However, it is not simply the story of Atlas or of Heracles that she writes, but that of herself. Many of her novels…

View Post