Book news, reviews and recommendations
Back in 2017 I reviewed Domenico Starnone’s Ties, remarking on its explosive opening letters from a furious wife to her unfaithful husband. It was Jhumpa Lahiri’s translation that attracted me to the novel but it was my enjoyment of it that made me put my hand up for Trust. As Lahiri notes in her afterword, …
Trust by Domenico Starnone (transl. Jhumpa Lahiri): A life in three parts Read More »
As my birthday appeared on the horizon, I could feel myself giving into the lure of the New Forest again and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about holidays it’s not to try to replicate them so I booked a few days in London in an aparthotel around the corner from Tate Modern. Once settled …
Back from London (more of that later in the week) with the tiniest handful of paperbacks to look out for in November, the first of which I’ve read already. Arlene Heyman’s Artifact follows biologist Lottie from her ‘50s childhood through to the ‘80s, still faced with professional barriers thanks to her gender despite a career …
This second instalment of November goodies is a rather more cosmopolitan affair, beginning with a book by an author whose work I’ve been meaning to read for some time. Sofi Oksanen’s Dog Park switches between 2016 Helsinki, where Olenka is joined on her park bench by a woman whose life she’s ruined, and Ukraine just …
Books to Look Out For in November 2021: Part Two Read More »
I swore I wouldn’t read a pandemic novel then ended up reading two before the summer was out. Hard to resist when one of them was Sarah Hall’s Burntcoat which neatly steers clear of our own pandemic, telling the story of Edith who survives the novavirus but knows that her time is limited. As all …
Burntcoat by Sarah Hall: ‘Those who tell stories survive’ Read More »
I loved Amor Towles Rules of Civility but, for some reason that I can’t now remember, could not get on with A Gentleman in Moscow at all. That didn’t stop me from putting my hand up for a proof of The Lincoln Highway whose stylish jacket seemed to offer the prospect of a road novel, …
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles: A 1950s American odyssey Read More »
A pleasing two-parter preview for November’s new fiction, the first of which begins with one I’ve already read. I had no intention of reading a pandemic novel, having had enough of it in real life, but then Sarah Moss’ The Fell turned up so that idea went out of the window. Just as her previous …
Books to Look Out For in November 2021: 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 – From The Lottery to The Quiet American Read More »
I’ve written about my ambivalence towards Lauren Groff’s writing before in a review of her last novel, Fates and Furies, back in 2015 and so when Matrix arrived I wasn’t at all sure about reading it, even more so given its twelfth-century setting. Groff’s novel is her reimagining of the life of Marie de France, …
A new Colm Tóibín always shines out like a beacon for me so I was delighted to be offered a proof of The Magician. Like his Booker-shortlisted The Master, which fictionalised the life of Henry James, Tóibín’s novel is about a towering literary figure, Thomas Mann, a writer I knew little about having only read …
The Magician by Colm Tóibín: The complicated life of Thomas Mann Read More »
Slim pickings for October’s paperback preview, sadly. I’m beginning with the only one I’ve yet to read – Tish Delaney’s Before My Actual Heart Breaks which is about Mary who grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Five children and a quarter of a century later, she’s finally glimpsed a chance of the happiness …