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Clare Macaulay

@wee_book_chats

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⭐Mum of two gorgeous people.
⭐In love with my dog and my local library.
⭐ Scottish. Librocubicularist.

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This book has been on a pile beside my bed for 5 years (nearly to the day) and i have wanted to read it for far longer than that! Someone tell me why the lure of newly published, trendy books always trumps the older books and those on your tbr pile?

If i could quote to you examples of exquisite writing from this book i would, without exaggeration, be selecting passages from every, single page!

When you can read without being aware that you are reading; when the words, the story, the characters just flow into your brain effortlessly, like water...you know you are in the hands of genius. This is what reading The Bell Jar was like for me.

1. What is this book about? - Mental illness, female identity, the suffocating expectations placed on women in 1950s America.

2. Why is it called The Bell Jar? The bell jar is a metaphor for mental illness. It represents Esther’s feeling of being trapped inside her own mind. She can see the world continuing around her, but she feels separated from it, unable to participate fully in ordinary life.

3. Female identity? - Esther feels trapped by the limited roles available to women in the 1950s. Society expects women to become wives and mothers, while also placing contradictory demands on them to be attractive, accomplished and successful. How much have we actually progressed since then?

4. Famous part of the book? - Choice paralysis & the fig tree. Esther imagines different figs representing possible futures: becoming a writer, having a family, travelling, falling in love, intellectual freedom etc. But choosing one means losing the others. As she hesitates, the figs begin to wither and fall.

This book could have been published yesterday and it would be relevant and be a bestseller. Plath exposes the gap between the glamorous image of young women’s lives and the unhappiness that can exist underneath it. Sound familiar?

A true classic. I absolutely devoured it!

Thank you @x.lara_mathieson.x for the prompt to fish this out of the dusty pile and finally read it. 📚

#thebelljar #sylviapath #mentalillness by @wee_book_chats

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4 days ago

When my top drawer friend @annelihep21 reminded me that Caitlin Moran's new book was out, and that she was reading it in an attempt to feel better about the world, I went out the very next day and bought it! It is utterly tremendous, just like everything Caitlin writes. I think it's my favourite of her books and most definitely the cheapest and funniest therapy available!

If any ONE of the following apply to you, you must read it:

1. You need something that's easy to read because you can't find enough time to read anything more, and your concentration span has been shot to hell by social media.

2. You are worried about global warming and the natural world.

3. You are worried about AI.

4. You feel like civilisation is collapsing, the country declining and that you are surrounded by clinically depressed people.

5. You are worried about mental health statistics, esp in young people.

6. You are overwhelmed by the constant bombardment of horrible news from around the world and don't know how to get out of the bad news cycle.

7. You are worried about your children and/or grandchildren and what kind of world they'll inhabit.

8 You are worried about being washed away....literally!

9. You are a woman aged between 35-65.

You are welcome! 😘

#caitlinmoran #howtobehopeful @mscaitlinmoran by @wee_book_chats

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7 days ago

😳😮‍💨 NO NOTES!

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#thedissappearers #marlonjames #jamaica #bookerprize2026 by @wee_book_chats

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13 days ago

This is a book about caring for someone Alzheimer’s/dementia (especially someone close to you)!

Dilara and her family have fled Turkey and are living in Italy, having been forced into exile by an increasingly authoritarian regime. Her father is suffering from dementia, and when they decide to renovate the bathroom to make things easier for him, the builders install a Turkish prison cell instead! 😳

The cell becomes a portal between Italy and Istanbul, and between Dilara’s present life and the past she has left behind. The cell is a metaphor for political turmoil, exile and, most poignantly, the prison of being a caregiver. It becomes a place where Dilara can reconnect with Istanbul, her memories, her language and the parts of herself she has been forced to leave behind.

I found the passages about dementia and Alzheimer’s so tender. Orhan captures the frustration and heartbreak of watching someone you love slowly disappear so well.

“How much it hurts to watch someone dissolve beneath their own skin.”

“As if the last decade hadn't been a preparation, as if my current life wasn't just some liminal existence at the skirt of my father's funeral march”.

This is a profoundly sad book but also incredibly funny at times. I'm left thinking of the many, many people in the invisible prison of caring for someone they love.

High recommend!

#therenovation #kenanorhan #bookerprizelonglist #turkey #bookstagram by @wee_book_chats

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22 days ago

Black Bag follows an unsuccessful actor who agrees to take part in a bizarre psychological experiment. He wears a black bag over his head, becoming an anonymous figure studied by a university professor. As the experiment develops, his strange new identity attracts attention, money, relationships and increasingly unpredictable consequences.

In 1967 there was a real life black bag experiment where a student at Oregon State University attended lectures hidden inside a black bag. He was initially met with hostility, but gradually became accepted by classmates, illustrating how repeated exposure can turn the unfamiliar into the familiar.

Kennard uses this as his premise but turns it around by asking what happens to the anonymous figure inside.

This is another complex book with endless discussion points but here are some of my thoughts:

1. BB strips the narrator of his identity but at the same time it becomes his identity. Note, he doesn’t have a name!

2. Just like in Helen of Nowhere, the man here is transformed by the end and has realised that his anonymity is liberating.

3. He also realises however that by becoming a blank canvas, other people can project their wants onto him. For example, Dr Blend makes him an experiment, Justine makes him a sex object, Claudio makes him a commodity and so on.

4. Kennard has said that the failure story is an important narrative. I agree. Content doesn't show failure and yet it is intricate to success.

Failure, identity, ideas about masculinity and performance are central in the novel as is an underlying fear of inadequacy.

"....the great river of shame that runs underneath masculinity"

“the expectations others have of him, his anxieties and thwarted ambitions”

“Maybe this is the only way of being a man”

5. Chapter 10 is one of the funniest things I've read.

I feel like the @thebookerprizes are pushing the boundaries of literary fiction this year and this was another clear example of this.

#blackbag #masculinity #anonymity @johnmurrays by @wee_book_chats

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a month ago

So this book embodies what I love about the @thebookerprizes . It is complex, it is very strange, it challenged me as a reader and my mind has been completely consumed by it for three full days now. No idea how I can tell you about it in a way that is logical but I'll try.

It starts with a realistic story of a professor who is essentially cancelled by his female colleagues. He is deemed irrelevant and his marriage also comes to an end. In the hope of freeing himself of responsibilities and starting anew he leaves the city and goes to view an idyllic, eco friendly house in the middle of nowhere.

Whilst viewing the house the real estate agent tells him stories of Helen, the owner of the house (she's in a nursing home) and then Helen's presence/seance/ghost?? ...enters the scene. At this point we seem to delve into the man's subconscious, his insecurities and personal issues.

The ending is crazy but clearly one that is open to various interpretations. One thing is for sure and certain though - the man has changed, he has learned his lesson and transformed! He has changed from an egocentric misogynist to someone able to love and have humility.

Also....

1. It's set out like a play, in 6 clear Acts. Had this not been the case I doubt I'd have had any clue who was speaking!
2. Helen of Troy was famous for her beauty and was the object of male desire. Helen of Nowhere interrogates a man and infantilises him. Calling him 'baby' gave me the ick though.🤢
3. It's not necessarily a book about the end of men or man bashing though, I think it's more about having the ability to transform/change our beliefs etc

Please....if you have read this.....help me. Are we on the same page....at all? Even a wee bit? 🤣🤣

#helenofnowhere @fitzcarraldoeditions #mackennagoodman #Helenoftroy #moderndayfairytale @makenna_good by @wee_book_chats

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2 months ago

Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Ann Patchett in person and listen to her for a full hour at the @edbookfest

Listening to @rkrystalli perceptive and intelligent questions and Ann's direct, articulate and often hilarious answers was undoubtedly one of the highlights of this year for me!

They were discussing Whistler, without spoilers, focusing more on themes in the novel and anecdotes from Ann Patchett's life, where they relate to the book and her writing.

Whistler is a warm book and, unsurprisingly, I really loved it. These are some of the main messages I took from it:

1. A person doesn't have to be in your life for very long to change your life forever.

2. Love can survive enormous periods of absence.

3. It is not a book about horses. A horse features in a story within the story and becomes much more important symbolically than anything else.

4. It is (for me anyway) primarily a story about the power of human connection and of how the effect of love and closeness can defy time.

It was a privilege to hear these women speak and to share the experience with @gilchrist9479

#Whistler #annpatchett @bloomsburypublishing @parnassusbooks by @wee_book_chats

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2 months ago

A really beautifully crafted, tender book about friendship, love, grief, loss and the gritty reality of being human.

I loved it, although I am feeling very sad 😔

#kingfisher #birds #queerlove #friendship @sarabandbooks #thepoet by @wee_book_chats

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2 months ago

Oufffttt....that was some ending 😳🥹!

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Not sure how I'd describe the genre as it is clearly about the devastating effects of climate change but it's also a book about the love between parents and children ....but read like a gripping thriller 🤷🏼‍♀️

It is set on a fictional remote island called Shearwater, which is closely based on Macquarie Island situated between Tasmania and Antarctica. Here, Dominic Salt lives with his three children, protecting a precious seed vault as climate change threatens to destroy the island.

A mysterious woman (Rowan), who is searching for her missing husband, washes ashore after a violent storm and disturbs the family's isolated existence. She starts to suspect that the family are keeping a secret from her and we don't find out what that is until very near to the end of the novel.

All members of the family, Dominic, Raff, Fen and Orly are expertly constructed and unique characters who I will miss. The descriptions of the water, the land, the seals, whales and the birds are gorgeous....i was there, on Shearwater, all week. So atmospheric!

Against a backdrop of environmental collapse, the novel explores grief, family, survival, love and humanity’s relationship with the natural world.

A reminder of our fragility as humans in the face of a rapidly changing world.

High recommend!

Thank you @wendycunningham536 for this beautiful gift 🌎
#wilddarkshore #climatechange @canongatebooks #charlottemcconaghy #bookstagram by @wee_book_chats

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2 months ago

This turned out to be the perfect holiday read. I didn’t really know what to expect but this is pure entertainment! 🪰

To all of you who say you me "what do you recommend, nothing too high brow, something good, easy to read?" 🤣....this....this is what I recommend!!!!

It follows Mallory, a novelist who's desperate to write the book that will revive her career. When she meets Leo, a young man whose life has been shaped by addiction and homelessness, she becomes convinced his story is the one she's been waiting for. As her obsession grows, the lines between empathy and exploitation become increasingly blurred.

It's funny, dark, clever and incredibly readable, but it also has real emotional depth. I absolutely devoured it because I had to know how it would all unravel but this is more than just a page turner: it is about identity, privilege, power and who gets to tell someone else's story. It is sharp, thought-provoking and hugely entertaining. Definitely one I'd recommend for high entertainment 👌.

#fruitfly #joshsilver #fiction #bookreview #bookstagram taken in Ursa Minor Bakehouse by @wee_book_chats

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2 months ago

On the surface this is about a writer who accidentally destroys (he drops his phone/recording device into the sink) the recording of an interview with his 90-year-old mentor, Thomas. He is forced to recreate the interview from memory.

Learner is asking how our devices shape our memories, how language preserves and distorts experience, and what fiction can capture that technology cannot.

There is no doubt that this is an intellectually ambitious novel that definitely challenged me as a reader. It is a brilliantly layered meditation on memory, language and human connection

Every act of remembering through physical, and imperfect, conversations with one another are also acts of reinterpretation. That is what makes them meaningful and beautiful!

Thank you for the gift @kerriesyme1

#transcription #benlerner #fatherhood #memories by @wee_book_chats

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3 months ago

This book is a beautiful reminder that family is something you create, not just something you're born into. While biological ties can be painful, or even destructive, the friendships we choose require a constant commitment to show up, support one another and love unconditionally.

Motherlessness is the force that drives the entire narrative, shaping every relationship and every decision the characters make. It's a tender exploration of belonging and the families we build for ourselves.

Thoroughly enjoyed this despite it taking me two weeks to read.

Question: why is it harder to read when there's a heatwave? 🤣🤷🏼‍♀️

P.s. Bernard the schnauzer hates all my books because they dilute my attention to him 🙄 by @wee_book_chats

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3 months ago