It’s time for another issue of the wonderful Shiny New Books, stuffed full of interviews, articles and reviews by some of my favourite bloggers and this ones a celebratory issue: it’s their first birthday. Such a lot of hard work, energy and talent have been poured into this project. It’s been a delight to be associated with it.
My own contribution to the fifth issue is a review of Patrick Gale’s A Place Called Winter, the latest novel in a long writing career made illustrious by Richard and Judy whose choice of Notes from an Exhibition for their book club thrust Gale into the spotlight in 2007. Those of us who’d been enjoying his well turned out, humane and absorbing novels for some time could only be surprised that it hadn’t happened before. This one is intensely personal: it’s based upon family stories of Gale’s ancestor Harry who fled looming disgrace in England to farm a few bleak acres in Canada. If you’d like to know more why not pop over to Shiny New books where you can read the full review and explore all manner of other delights.
You know what? I’ve never read him. I have a copy of Notes from an Exhibition that’s sitting on my shelf unread. All the Twitter hype for A Place in Winter ended with me ignoring it but it sounds as though I might enjoy it. Hmmmm.
It’s very different from his other novels – a first venture into historical fiction – but he carries it off well.
I’ve never read any of his books before but after reading Isabel Costello’s blog about his latest I’ve now got it on my tbr list.
I’ll nip over to Isabel’s and take a look, Helen. This is very different from his previous novels but just as enjoyable.