A Life in Books

Cover image for Venus Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell

Venus, Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell: Art, deception and desire in 1930s Berlin

17 July 2026 / 13 Comments

I snapped up Rebecca Birrell’s Venus, Vanishing, as soon as it was pitched to me. Opening in Berlin just as Hitler’s rise in popularity has begun, art historian Birrell’s first novel follows eighteen-year-old Hannah Sherman, determined to become an artist rather than marry into a life of domestic drudgery. Elke wanted me to know how […]

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Cover image for The Simp by Roshan Sethi

The Simp by Roshan Sethi: A novel without a hero

15 July 2026 / 18 Comments

I dithered about reading Roshan Sethi’s The Simp, put off by a few dismissive reviews, but given it’s published by a favourite imprint, decided to take the plunge. As Thackeray fans will have spotted from the subtitle, it’s a twenty-first century take on Vanity Fair, set in Hollywood in 2020, the year Black Lives Matter

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Books to Look Out For in August 2026: Part Two

13 July 2026 / 16 Comments

August’s second instalment begins with a book from a favourite author of mine. Donal Ryan’s Where Are the Kings follows twelve-year-old Jack over two years after a terrible loss sees his grandparents take him in. One day his mother sets off in the battered family car with Jack careering after her on his bike, too

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Cover image for The Red Mouth by Sheila Armstrong

The Red Mouth by Sheila Armstrong: Uncovering the past

10 July 2026 / 16 Comments

Given how much I enjoyed both her short story collection, How to Gut a Fish, and her debut novel, Falling Animals, you’d think I’d jump at the change to read Sheila Armstrong’s The Red Mouth, but the blurb’s hints of otherworldliness, curses and strange magnetism put me off. Fortunately, the supernatural strand proved to be

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Cover image for After the Funeral by Tessa Hadley

A Snapshot of My Reading #17

8 July 2026 / 26 Comments

This month I’m reading a short story collection by a novelist I’ve had a slightly patchy experience with, a memoir combining travel and food – two of my favourite things besides reading – and a prize-winning novel I’d hoped to enjoy more than I am. The short story collection I’m reading is Tessa Hadley’s After

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Cover image for Sky City by Jacqueline Crooks

Books to Look Out For in August 2026: Part One

6 July 2026 / 28 Comments

August’s new fiction’s a bit of a mixed bag, beginning with an author whose debut was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize in 2023. Jacqueline Crooks’s Sky City is set in the eponymous north London housing estate where Jaycee lives after years in a homeless hostel. When she finds a clue that may help her best

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Six Degrees of Separation – Yesteryear to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay

4 July 2026 / 26 Comments

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,

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Cover image for The Last Banquet by Jonathan Grimwood

Blasts from the Past: The Last Banquet by Jonathan Grimwood (2013)

3 July 2026 / 12 Comments

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 often feel that publishers fail their authors with book covers. Sometimes I wonder if the designer was

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Six in Six: 2026

1 July 2026 / 28 Comments

I first used this meme three years ago having spotted it on Margaret’s Pyrenees to Pennines which I follow for her striking photography. She’d picked it up from Jo at The Book Jotter, the meme’s originator, who has since decided to throw in the blogging towel. Happily, Emma at Words and Peace has decided to

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Cover image for Summerwater by Sarah Moss

Five More Summer Books I’ve Read

29 June 2026 / 27 Comments

It’s almost two years since I posted my first five summer reads, mentioning how much I look forward to summer although not heatwaves like the poleaxing one we’ve been experiencing in Europe. The five novels below summon up the season for me, all with links to my reviews. Set over a single drenching summer’s day,

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Cover image for Whistler by Ann Patchett

Whistler by Ann Pattchett: Doing what she does best

26 June 2026 / 26 Comments

I was delighted to spot a new Ann Patchett in the publishing schedules, even more so when a proof dropped through my letterbox. Whistler begins with Daphne and her husband sharing a day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when he spots an elderly man who seems to be following her. I hadn’t known there

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