Book news, reviews and recommendations
Summer reading is on the horizon for publishers and this second batch of June fiction includes at least one novel that might be described as such although it’s a category I tend to avoid. I’ve yet to get around to Catherine Newman’s We All Want Impossible Things, despite several readers whose opinions I trust urging […]
Books to Look Out For Out for in June 2024: Part Two Read More »
I missed Commitment in hardback, knowing it would require time, thought and attention that I didn’t have when it was due to be published, but unusually, Mona Simpson’s American publicist contacted me, and I suggested a review for the UK paperback publication. Beginning in the early ’70s, it tells the story of the Aziz family
Commitment by Mona Simpson: Coming of age in difficult times Read More »
I read the first in John Boyne’s four-novella series last year, ending my review with reservations but planning to read the next instalment. While Water looked at the complicity of a wife in her husband’s sexual abuse of minors, Earth is set in the world of professional football where two players are accused of a
Earth by John Boyne: A modern morality tale Read More »
This first few titles in this batch of potential June goodies have a coming-of-age theme beginning with the only one I’ve already read. Téo finds himself in charge of two-year-old Joel after his mother takes her own life in Going Home, Tom Lamont’s warm-hearted, empathetic debut. Social Services’ machinery grinds into action with the help
Books to Look Out For Out for in June 2024: Part One Read More »
Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list,
Six Degrees of Separation – The Anniversary to Potterism Read More »
This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could. Regular readers may have gathered that I’m fan of Colm Tóibín’s writing. His name appears on my About
Blasts from the Past: The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín (1999) Read More »
Back in 2022, I read Niamh Mulvey’s short story collection, Hearts and Bones, one of many strikingly good books I read by Irish women that year, so I was delighted when her first novel popped up on NetGalley. The Amendments follows three generations of women, from the 1970s to 2018 when Nell and her partner
The Amendments by Niamh Mulvey: ‘We are not pro-abortion, we are pro-woman.’ Read More »
I’ve been careful with that heading, not wanting to mislead readers. The qualifier’s there more to indicate what these thrillers aren’t – action packed, techie, blood-soaked, although one does have a gruesome murder – rather than what they are, and I couldn’t think of another word. It’s a genre I tend to watch rather than
Five Literary Thrillers I’ve Read Read More »
The Start of Something is Holly Williams’ second novel although some might call it a very closely linked set of short stories or, perhaps, episodes. Somehow, I missed her debut but will be adding it to be my TBR list. This new book follows ten characters over the course of a summer, stringing their stories
The Start of Something by Holly Williams: One thing leads to another Read More »
H and I visited Manchester two years ago to see friends and visit the Derek Jarman exhibition which we both loved. We had the much-restored Rochdale Town Hall in our sights this time, more of which later. Our hotel was a stone’s throw away from Manchester Cathedral which looks more like a pretty parish church
Three Days in and Around Manchester plus One Book Read More »
Back from my Northern jaunt (more of that later in the week) with a second batch of May paperback goodies which begins with one of my 2023 favourites, Jenny Erpenbeck’s International Booker Prize shortlisted Kairos. Erpenbeck explores identity through a love affair beginning in 1985 between Hans, a successful writer born in 1933, and Katharina,
Paperbacks to Look Out For in May 2024: Part Two Read More »