Only Excellent and Terrible Books! 

I am 109 pages into The Borrowed Hills thanks for the mini review. I loved the description of the fells the scene when all the sheep were being slaughtered on Montgarth farm brought tears to my eyes. I remember the foot and mouth outbreak and the nightly news showing the heart break of farmers loosing their whole life's work

Blessings sounds wonderful and I'm all the more eager to get around to reading my copy now. Great review of it :) Love when authors trust readers!

Thank you Scott: I have added Borrowed Hills and Coast Road to TBR. 😊

"It's clearly not a beat generation novel and thank goodness for that." This line amused me.

I have Coast Road on my library holds list!! I just finished Leonard and Hungry Paul- so happy it was the choice for book club as it's such a unique "cozy"that I actually ended up enjoying except for a few heavy handed moments. Hope I can make one of the discussion times 🙂

Your honesty in literature is your appeal, in my opinion. Carry on…

I just finished Boysie Singh. Glorious book. I have Borrowed Hills in hand to get to so it was good to get your perspective.

Great video! “In today’s video, a queer Nigerian coming of age novel”. Four seconds in and I’m already adding books to my TBR. The Borrowed Hills and The Road to the Country have been added too. I try to read diversely and recently realized I haven’t read anything from South America yet this year so I may add The Lost Songs of Boysie Singh, but for some reason that one doesn’t pique my interest as much as the others

Bummer on Eartheater bc the intro had me 😍 over that cover . 📖🪱💚

Hi Scott, about the translated fiction book, Julia Sanchez is a wonderful translator from Brazil and she translates many languages, including Spanish and Catalan. I read in Spanish as well and I thought you did a wonderful job in Boulder by Eva Balthazar. I appreciate it that novel, but did not love it. Aloha.

Thoughtful and witty reviews as always. 😊

Gunpowder Fiction and Scott made me laugh 😆 the borrowed hills sounds like it's right up my alley, I definitely need to read even more than my 5 books a month, how am I to squeeze them all in 😫

Feast or famine! Thanks for great reviews as always!

Couldn't agree more with your first point (when you are talking about Choices). Whatever happened to "show, don't tell"? I haven't read this particular book, but I'm very tired of pseudo-intellectual essayists writing pretentious pseudo-novels lol

Borrowed Hills added to TBR 📖🪱💚

Thank you! I'm adding The Coast Road.. and Ingrid Persaud. I really appreciate your time and efforts😊

I started Boysie Singh before the Booker got announced and paused it to read those. May need to back to it. Great to hear your thoughts as always Scott❤

I'm Cumbrian, glad you enjoyed The Borrowed Hills 😊

Eartheater looked like a good book but when I skimmed through it I felt like the translation could have been better. I haven’t read it but if my memory serves me correctly that is what I thought. So I am glad I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. The book does look interesting. I definitely will be reading it.

Your list is a bit like an alternative Booker list for me. I’m delighted one Irish book made the long list ( Wild Houses) but I’m currently listening to two books that are equally good The Coast Road The Alternatives I’m hoping they get some love from the An Post Irish book awards this year.

I'm planning to get to Sanya Rushdi's Hospital this month for WomeninTranslation month. Such a treat to be able to read a translated Australian novel!

I really really want to read Ingrid Persaud and I may consider picking up The Coast Road. 😊💙

Loved the bloopers at the end.

I checked out Hospital at the library based on your earlier recommendation.

I also really was disappointed with Eartheater. It sounded like an interesting idea but it just didn't work out well.

Sounds like I should have kept Persaud's novel instead of returning it, unread, to the library yesterday and instead returned Choice? Wrong Choice? 🙂 I bought Hospital a couple of weeks ago because the library was taking too long to purchase it, sounds like that might have been the right choice 🙃 Great reviews Scott, thanks!

Thank you Scott

Loved The Coastal Road!

I have The coast road and The hospital on my tbr... looking forward to get to them soon... I have recently read Molokai by Allen Brennert... it's a great read!!... Have you heard of it or read it?

Youre cute asl bruh