Book news, reviews and recommendations
March was a miserable month for me, thanks to the man who sprayed his germs all over the carriage of the Didcot to Oxford train as I was on my way to meet a friend. That horrible hacking cough became all too familiar. What I thought might be a nasty cold turned out to be […]
Just One Book Read (But Not Reviewed) in March 2016 Read More »
Miroslav Penkov’s collection East of the West was raved about by all and sundry when it was published back in 2012 including the BBC short story award judges who named it a winner. Being a recent convert to short stories, I haven’t read it but it’s safe to say that Stork Mountain offers something of
Stork Mountain by Miroslav Penkov: Stories within stories Read More »
Back to Moscow came all wrapped up in orange ribbon along with a couple of other titles, one of which I had my eye on already thanks to Twitter. You won’t be surprised to hear that it’s set in Moscow, back at the beginning of the century when the city was stuffed full of expats
Back to Moscow by Guillermo Erades: The story of a 21st-century superfluous man Read More »
I like to start these previews off with a book I can heartily recommend and I’m delighted to say that’s easy this April as two of my 2015 favourites hit the shops in paperback. Hard to choose which I enjoyed most so I’m starting with one and ending with the other. Franz-Olivier Giesbert’s wonderful Himmler’s
Paperbacks to Look Out For in April 2016 Read More »
It’s always a tricky moment for me when a writer approaches me to review their book. I’ve learnt that the best policy is to politely say no: this blog is all about recommendations which means a good deal of agonising if I don’t like a book whose author has made themselves known to me. However,
Inscription by Christine Whittemore: Of saints and sinners Read More »
When I first picked up Jim Powell’s new novel I was looking for a bit of light relief after finishing Olivia Laing’s excellent but often harrowing The Lonely City. I thought it might be a much slimmed down version of John Lanchester’s Capital or Justin Cartwright’s Other People’s Money, a post-financial crash novel, which to
Trading Futures by Jim Powell: The unravelling of a betting man Read More »
This second batch of April titles kicks off with a book that’s been getting a fair bit of attention in my neck of the Twitter woods. Not always a good sign but it’s been from the kind of people who usually know what they’re talking about. Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You is set in
Books to Look Out For in April 2016: Part 2 Read More »
In the very early days of this blog I reviewed Judith Hermann’s beautifully put together set of interlinked short stories, Alice, under the banner ‘Small but Perfectly Formed’. The same heading could stand for her new novel, Where Love Begins, although its subject matter is quite different. Alice explored grief and how we endure it,
Travis Mulhauser’s novel first caught my eye on Twitter last year thanks to a quote from Ron Rash who seemed to think it well worth a read. Rash belongs to that stripped-down school of writers whose names always snag my attention. Set in blizzard-swept Michigan, Sweetgirl certainly lived up to his ‘gritty, compelling’ billing but
Sweetgirl by Travis Mulhauser: In the bleak mid-winter… Read More »
With luck those of us who’ve been struggling with a grey, damp – or worse – winter will be able to see a bit of light glimmering on the horizon by now. Far too early with that observation according to H but I’m forever the weather optimist and if I’m proved wrong there are a
Books to Look Out For in April 2016: Part 1 Read More »
First published in 1967 and now reissued as a rediscovered classic, Thomas Savage’s novel comes lauded to the skies by the likes of Nicholas Shakespeare, who claims it’s better than Stoner, and Annie Proulx, who rates it sufficiently to have written a lengthy afterword. It also came with a health warning from its publicist who
The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage: Entirely deserving of its Stoner comparison Read More »