Book news, reviews and recommendations
It was its structure that attracted me to Neil Bartlett’s Address Book. It’s a set of seven loosely linked short stories each of which takes place in London in different times and different situations, all sharing the themes of home, belonging and love. I usually pick out the best of the bunch with short story …
Address Book by Neil Bartlett: Seven stories of love and belonging 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. The pleasures of reading fiction are many and varied but broadly speaking they tend to fall into two …
Blasts from the Past: Eucalyptus by Murray Bail (1998) Read More »
I spotted Kevin Wilson’s Tunneling to the Centre of the Earth on Netgalley, reminding me of how much I enjoyed his novel, Nothing to See Here. It’s a new edition of his first short story collection comprising eleven pieces. Knowing that many of them were written when Wilson was a student, my expectations weren’t particularly …
Tunneling to the Centre of the Earth by Kevin Wilson: ‘I don’t think I belong here’ Read More »
This is one of those instances when, rather than reading the novel by an author sitting unread on my shelf since I can’t remember when, I plumped for their bright, shiny and new book, although bright might not be the best way to describe Sofi Oksanen’s Dog Park. Opening in Helsinki in 2016, Oksanen’s novel …
Dog Park by Sofi Oksanen (transl. Owen F. Witesman): Fertility for sale Read More »
This is my first non-fiction Five Books I’ve Read post and to no one’s surprise it’s about readers, book collectors and bookshops, although I suppose it could have been about travel or food. Here then are five books I’ve read about the wonderful world of books, each with a link to my review. White Spines …
I’m not sure what it was that attracted me to Pedro Mairal’s The Woman from Uruguay. Perhaps it was simply that it’s a novella or that I’ve not read anything by a Latin American writer for some time. Whatever it was I’m glad I decided to read it. This short piece of fiction reads almost …
The Woman from Uruguay by Pedro Mairal (transl. Jennifer Croft): One day in the life Read More »
Lots of brouhaha surrounding Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s My Monticello which, as I know from experience, doesn’t always lead to a satisfying read. I wasn’t entirely sure whether to accept when I was offered a copy but decided to give it a try given it’s a Harvill Secker title, one of my favourite lists. Set against …
There are few new titles to get excited about in December with publishers’ Christmas wares long put out on display. Just enough to make a single preview post worthwhile, beginning with Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s The Newcomer set on a Pacific island where Paulina has disappeared. Given her daughter’s past, her mother is prepared for the …
It’s a mystery to me why I’ve not read anything by Claire Keegan before given my predilection for Irish writing, particularly as Cathy over at 746Books has spoken so highly of her work. Small Things Like These is the briefest of novellas, a mere 124 pages with a good deal of white space thrown in …
I had no intention of reading a pandemic novel having had enough of it in real life then Sarah Moss’ The Fell was announced, a sweet surprise as Summerwater was published less than eighteen months ago. Just as Summerwater spans a single day in the lives of a group of holidaymakers in Scotland, The Fell …
The Fell by Sarah Moss: ‘Life, then, to be lived, somehow’ 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. Lesley Glaister was one of those writers I kept expecting to break through from relative obscurity and land …
Blasts from the Past: Sheer Blue Bliss by Lesley Glaister (1999) Read More »