About Me

Hi, I’m Jacqui, and this blog — JacquiWine’s Journal — is a space for me to share my thoughts and reviews of some of the books I’ve been reading. It’s mostly books here, but I also post the occasional piece about wine, especially if there’s a link to a literary theme.

I tend to read quite a lot of literary fiction – mostly writers from the mid-20th century, although I’m open to more contemporary fiction and the occasional non-fiction title too, especially literary biographies and cultural essays.

My favourite writers are Elizabeth Taylor, Penelope Fitzgerald, Barbara Pym, Richard Yates, Edith Wharton, Patricia Highsmith, Patrick Hamilton and Raymond Chandler. More recent additions to these favourites include William Trevor, Barbara Comyns and Shirley Jackson. These are some of the writers I’d like to read more of in the future.

I’m also interested in literature in translation, especially books from Europe, Latin American and Japan. Vintage crime fiction is another big area for me: typically noir, hard-boiled fiction and Golden Age mysteries from the UK, the rest of Europe, the US and Latin America.

In my spare time, I love films, particularly independent/world cinema and classic film noir – when I’m not reading, you’ll generally find me in the cinema (or, in this COVID era, streaming films at home). I also have an interest in wine, partly professional, partly for pleasure. (I’ve worked for the Wine Society on a freelance basis for a number of years. Most of my wine comes from there, so the wine notes will link to some of their bottles – my own views, of course!) I also manage the book subscriptions services and some PR activities for two local independent bookshops, which are very enjoyable things to do.

If you can spare the time, please do leave a comment or two on any posts of interest to you.

If you’d like to contact me, I’m on twitter @JacquiWine or you can email me at jacqui100@live.co.uk. On GoodReads, you’ll find me under ‘JacquiWine’.

If you’re a publisher with a book that might be of interest to me, please feel free to get in touch by email. I’m happy to accept physical review copies if they are in line with my interests, provided I have the time to read them – my TBR pile is quite large at the moment, so this may not always be the case. (Unfortunately, electronic/PDF copies of books don’t work very well for me as I prefer to read books in physical format, especially if I’m planning to write about them.) Lastly, I would rather not accept review copies directly from authors, for personal reasons – thank you for your understanding.

Thanks for dropping by,

Jacqui