Book news, reviews and recommendations
This month’s snapshot includes a bike ride through the US during an election year, an Irish linked short story collection and a novel I’ve been anticipating for a decade. The non-fiction book I’m reading is Simon Parker’s A Ride Across America. Beginning in Seattle on the eve of the 2024 election when, inevitably, conversation turns
A Snapshot of My Reading #20 Read More »
We decided to break the first part of this year’s railway jaunt, meeting up with friends in London and arriving in Bonn early the following evening after a long day’s travel, including an hour’s delay, hardly unexpected given Deutsche Bahn’s recent lamentable performance. That and the fog shrouding our top-notch Rhine view meant an uncharacteristic
Twelve Days in Germany, Two Days in Austria, Three Days in Hungary and Two Books Read More »
This second batch of November titles opens with a novel that felt more like summer reading to me. Livia Franchini’s High Tide follows two timelines: one in the 1990s when Mary Godwin is thinking of dropping out of university, and one in the 2020s when the horror writer she’s become finds herself forced to remember
Books to Look Out For in November 2026: Part Two Read More »
Back from my travels (more of which next week) with a set of short stories originally published in 2015. The Fallen Trees Are Also the Forest is the first book by Japanese-Argentine author, Alejandra Kamiya, to be published in English. It comprises twelve brief pieces, several just a few pages in length but they’re not
We’re hurtling toward Christmas, or at least publishers are at this point in the schedules, with several standout titles in November’s preview beginning with a sequel to a novel published fifteen years ago. Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding was hyped to the skies when it was published in 2011 but actually lived up to
Books to Look Out For in November 2026: 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 – Life of M to The Nakano Thrift Shop 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 into as many hands as I could. I was a little sceptical about The President’s Hat which seemed a tad whimsical for me, but it
I’m always happy to see something new by Patrick deWitt in the publishing schedules. He’s still not leapt over the high bar set by The Sisters Brothers for me, but I always enjoy his novels. Set in 1967, Dodge City follows Lee Clarke who takes to the road, heading for Canada, after his draft notice
Dodge City by Patrick deWitt: ‘Is the motivation for your travel existential?’ Read More »
This second batch of October paperbacks begins with one I’m in two minds about. Anna North’s Bog Queen sees a homesick forensic anthropologist called to a coroner when a perfectly preserved body is found, buried in a bog in the north of England for thousands of years. Agnes finds herself trying to disentangle the puzzle
Paperbacks to Look Out For in October 2026: Part Two Read More »
I couldn’t have been more delighted when Louise Kennedy’s Stations dropped through my letter box. I was a huge fan of her short story collection The End of the World is a Cul de Sac and even more impressed by her debut novel, Trespasses, beautifully adapted by Channel 4 last year. Her second novel follows
Stations by Louise Kennedy: Love, friendship and redemption Read More »
Given its historical women’s fiction label, I took a punt on A. Rushby’s All Her Beautiful Deaths, not being at all keen on the idea of gendered descriptions, but I was attracted by the idea of Victorian memorial portraits. It follows Minnie, who becomes a companion to Edith in 1865, and Hadley, a young twenty-first
All Her Beautiful Deaths by A. Rushby: An art world historical page-turner Read More »