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This is the first of two books I was given for Christmas, and once I started reading it, it was never far from my side.  Adam Kay shares some of the notes that he wrote while working as a junior doctor in obstetrics and gynaecology (OB GYN), and his experiences range from slapstick comedy to heart-breaking stories when things go wrong. Most men have a real aversion to anything to do with OB GYN, so it is all the more interesting to read how a male doctor coped in this field.  The upside of the job is working on the maternity ward with the joy of delivering healthy babies to healthy mothers, but female anatomy does not always work in the ways we expect it to, and the OB GYN doctor may be called upon to save the day (and two lives), several times during one shift.  The doctors also have to deal with all the problems that can occur in our plumbing when we are not giving birth, and many of these are not for the faint hearted.  Some of the tools of the trade look as thoug...

I'm always pleased to find a different title written by a favourite author, and this book by Sebastian Barry does not disappoint.  It's set in rural Ireland in the late 1950s at a time when modern comforts were just creeping in to Co Wicklow and many people were still living their lives as their ancestors would have done a century before. Annie Dunne is a spinster woman of sixty one who already considers herself an old woman, and as she has no close relatives to look after her in her old age, she has gone to live with her cousin Sarah on a small farm.  Before she moved to the farm, Sarah had been living with her sister Maud and her family because Maud was bedbound and unable to look after her own children.  Annie assumed she would always live there, but after Maud died, her brother in law made it clear that she was no longer welcome.  After that she had very little to do with the family until her two nephews had children of their own and one of the boys suddenly aske...

We travel back to the 1960s with this book, and into a period of time that many people my age look back on nostalgically as 'simpler times', but by the time you get to the end, you realise that a smaller world does not always bring happiness. Helen is an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital in Croydon, and for a couple of years she has been having an affair with Gil, who is not only one of the doctors but turns out to be part of her extended family through marriage.  Helen was taken in by Gil's charismatic personality but after the arrival of an extraordinary patient, she starts to view life differently. The patient is William who is 37 years old but has not left his house for around 25 years.  He had been raised by his aunts who kept him out of sight 'for his own safety', but as they grew older and less able to take care of him, William's condition deteriorated badly, and by the time he was discovered, he was vey much under weight and his hair and beard were...

  This is not so much a novel as a series of takes on the same situation that demonstrate different perspectives on racial inclusivity and 'woke' culture.  Some novels invite you in to the story in a way that makes the reader a guest in the living rooms of the characters but, to me, this book feels more like watching from afar, and although we meet the same people in different sections, there is no one person to particularly root for or empathise with. The core story is a serious assault on a man called Pegasus who had been running a collective group of squatter occupying an empty farm during the time of the pandemic.  Pegasus was struck over the head with something that appeared to be a gold bullion bar after telling Jake, who was a member of the group, that he was no longer welcome on the farm. The farm is owned by a wealthy banker who bought it with the intention of providing himself with a survivalist refuge in the event of a national emergency.  He also owned th...

  The look and title of this book suggests it is a book for grown ups, and it is.  The writing style is mature and sophisticated and there is a multi-generational saga neatly fitted within 202 pages.  Less is more, and Paul Auster is not an author to waste pages on needless fluff. Sy Baumgartner is an author aged 72, and he is starting to feel the physical restrictions that come with three score years and ten.  He's still working as a philosophy professor, and although retirement is calling, he's not sure how it will work out for him.  His much loved wife has been dead for some years, and after living as a single man for a good while he finally found a woman in her fifties who was good company and a comfort to him. Baumgartner's new love, Judith, is very different from his late wife Anna, both physically and temperamentally, but the relationship works and he is contemplating the next step of asking her to marry him, or at least agree to move in together. ...

There is only one strand to this story:  Maggie and her husband Jon jointly decide to get a divorce after only 2 years of marriage, and Maggie cries about it for 370 pages. Maggie is from the millennial generation, and I'm sure a lot of other millennial woman would have great empathy with her situation, but as a boomer, all I could think after the first 200 pages or so was: GET A GRIP.   I don't think I have any more to say.