Annie Kapur
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I am:
🙋🏽♀️ Annie
📚 Avid Reader
📝 Reviewer and Commentator
🎓 Post-Grad Millennial (M.A)
***
I have:
📖 300K+ reads on Vocal
🫶🏼 Love for reading & research
🦋/X @AnnieWithBooks
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🏡 UK
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Book Review: "The Holy Sinner" by Thomas Mann
One of the great novels of the 20th century is Thomas Mann's Lotte in Weimar and, if you've been paying attention, I've also written about his book Death in Venice in the 'Why it's a Masterpiece' series. His novel Dr Faustus is, in my opinion, one of the great novels of his time and The Magic Mountain has often inspired other great novels such as Olga Tokarczuk's The Empusium (which I also enjoyed and reviewed). How I completely missed The Holy Sinner I will never know but here we are, with another used book costing a very small amount of money. The book is practically falling apart but isn't that all the fun of it?
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Raisin and Ginger Cupcakes
Welcome back to my recipes. If you'd like an overview of them then simply go to my profile and click on 'Feast'. Anything published in the last 1-2 months is part of the autumnal baking series I'm doing. As you know, I'm personally not a huge fan of cake and biscuits, but when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed or a bit sad, it gets me up and doing something that isn't on my laptop. It's also close to Halloween which means of course I was making myself feel better by watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre last night. Yes, it was the original one. I'm quite excited for Halloween. As you can see I've also been making my soups and I will be continuing with some of those later on.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Feast
Book Review: "Night" by Elie Wiesel
I've read this one before but it was a while back now. It was definitely time for a reread because since a couple of years' ago, I have been seeing it everywhere. Forgive me for this statement of pure idiocy but: the 'universe' was telling me to reread this book. I honestly forgot how upsetting this book was, some of the images are just harrowing and the fact that it is a real account of what happened from a person who was actually there just makes it all the more horrifying. So without further introduction, let us explore one of the most important books of the 20th century...
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol" by Andy Warhol
Note: If you don't want to read the little narrative at the beginning, please skip to the 'review' heading. *** Okay, so I have to tell you a story so you might be here for some time. This isn't the review but it has something to do with the book so stay seated. I bought this book used for like 50p to £1 and it is a little worse for wear to be perfectly honest, though it is still readable and that's all I care about.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Leave No Trace - Japan’s Evaporating People
Welcome back to 'why it's shifty' and today we are looking at a strange phenomenon: Japan's evaporating people. Commonly known as johatsu, these people just randomly vanish, leaving behind their family and friends to wonder exactly what happened. Popularised in the 1960s and 1970s, there's something that has never sat right with me about this. But, at the end of the day, it is up to the individual. Even if the individual may not be in a sound state of mind when they commit to something that will come to redefine everything about who they are...
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Imagist Poetry" ed. by Peter Jones . Top Story - October 2025.
Hopefully you and I can skim over the legacy of the poet Ezra Pound, who was basically the leader of this movement, and concentrate on what the movement itself was actually about. Imagism: a subculture of poetry focused on deliberate imagery, blossoming in the early 20th century at roughly the same time as Modernism and including a whole range of poets that we've probably heard of, and some that fell into obscurity. I was quite surprised that I became interested in this anthology but I've been waiting a whole long damn time to read it, so here we are.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day was published on 20 October 1919 by Duckworth & Co. It is Woolf’s second novel, following her debut The Voyage Out (1915). The book reflects Woolf’s exploration of traditional Edwardian narrative structures, which she would later reject in favour of her modernist style seen in works like Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Buffalo Hunter Hunter" by Stephen Graham Jones
I've encountered Stephen Graham Jones quite a bit over the course of the last few years. The anthology When Things Get Dark in which several horror writers attempt to write in the style of Shirley Jackson was perhaps one of my personal favourites he has been involved with. The Only Good Indians was a pretty good one and I have yet to read a couple that I really want to including: Don't Fear the Reaper and The Ones Who Got Away. Stephen Graham Jones is perhaps one of the most intriguing voices in contemporary horror because of his mix of folk, cultural horror and suspense. Now, on to the review for The Buffalo Hunter Hunter...
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Enchanted April" by Elizabeth von Arnim
This book was recommended to me by the wonderful world of the internet. I saw someone talking about its tone and I was definitely in. The book itself is gorgeous, atmospheric and funny and the characters are brilliant. Starting off by being set in Hampstead, our main character Mrs Lotty Wilkins is enamoured by an advertisement of a Medieval Castle in the newspaper. As her husband encourages her to 'save for a rainy day' she has become so thrifty with her clothes that she practically dresses in rags. But now, she's come to her 'rainy day' and she's wondering what to do next...
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Mince Pies
You'd probably think it is easy to make mince pies and so, you'd be right. However, as we all know, I like to add my own flavours in and so, it becomes a very different affair (and also a little bit more difficult than I had initially planned). I am aware of the fact that mince pies are Christmas bakes and not necessarily Halloween bakes but I genuinely wanted to make my mother some mince pies because I don't want her eating the Mr. Kipling ones because a) they are coated in sugar and b) she has a heart condition and that can't be good.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Feast
Book Review: "Into the War" by Italo Calvino
Used bookstores can be so much help when looking for a good deal on paperbacks. As we speak, I've pretty much finished Into the War by Italo Calvino and I'm sitting in the afternoon light with a cup of coffee, a glass of sparkling water and I'm watching Hitchcock (2012) which is probably not as great as people have been telling me it is despite starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren. Well, I should actually be more honest - it was awful. At least Calvino's novella wasn't awful though...
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Junky" by William S. Burroughs
Here we go, we're back with some William S. Burroughs. If you haven't read my previous stuff about him then here's a quick shortcut of an introduction: I'm on the fence about a lot of his writing. Back in university I read the book he wrote with Kerouac entitled And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks and amongst the phoney bohemians had to almost pretend like I enjoyed it. My review of The Soft Machine can be read by clicking the link here. And also a more 'on the fence' review of The Wild Boys can be read here.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
