Book news, reviews and recommendations
February’s second batch of paperbacks includes three I’ve already read, beginning with one likely to be a Marmite book with knobs on for many readers. One of my books of last year, Helen Oyeyemi’s inventive, playful Parasol Against the Axe follows a hen party which has descended on Prague, Oyeyemi’s beloved adopted home and the […]
Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2025: Part Two Read More »
Despite its door-stopping proportions I couldn’t resist Catherine Airey’s much trumpeted debut with its promise of an involving tale of two Irish sisters, one of whom emigrates to New York to take up an art school scholarship ticking two of my literary boxes. Máire and Rósín’s stories span decades beginning in the 1970s when they’re
Confessions by Catherine Airey: Choose your own adventure Read More »
I remember Clare Sestanovich’s short story collection, Objects of Desire, being much praised when it was published which is what made me want to read her first novel, Ask Me Again. It begins with sixteen-year-old Eva meeting James in a Brooklyn hospital waiting room where her parents are anxiously sitting at her comatose grandmother’s bedside,
Ask Me Again by Clare Sestanovich: More questions than answers Read More »
Enough paperback goodies to brighten up what’s probably my least favourite month, I’m pleased to say, beginning with Andrew O’Hagan’s Caledonian Road billed as a state-of-the-nation novel which I always find appealing. Opening in May 2021, it follows Campbell Flynn, an art historian and celebrity intellectual who enjoys stirring things up, and Milo Manghasa, his
Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2025: Part One Read More »
The premise of Elizabeth Harris’s How to Sleep at Night was catnip for me. Happily married and bringing up their daughter, Ethan and Gabe find themselves at opposite ends of the political spectrum. When Ethan announces he wants to run for Congress on a Republican ticket, he tells Gabe that he will only do it
How to Sleep at Night by Elizabeth Harris: A step too far? Read More »
Aiming to break up the winter gloom, H and I took ourselves off to London for a few days planning to catch up with a few friends and family plus take in a bit of culture. We arrived on a gloriously sunny afternoon and decided to visit the National Portrait Gallery which underwent a substantial
Three Days in London and One Book Read More »
Back from my London break (more of which later in the week) with February’s second batch of new fiction beginning with one I’ve already read. Opening in 1960s Vienna, Robert Seethaler’s The Café with No Name follows Robert Simon, whose dream is to run a bar, against a backdrop of a social change as Vienna
Books to Look Out For in February 2025: Part Two Read More »
Quite a few goodies to look out for in February’s publishing schedules, certainly enough to offer distraction from the grey gloom that usually prevails in my part of the world. I’ll begin with a gem I’ve already read. Garrett Carr’s adult debut, The Boy From the Sea, continues the seemingly never-ending stream of brilliant Irish
Books to Look Out For in February 2025: 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 – Orbital to Disobedience 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. Regular readers of this blog will have noticed that I tend to shy away from fluffy novels, often heading
Blasts from the Past: The Republic of Love by Carol Shields (1992) Read More »
Happy New Year! Today seems a good day to try out an idea I’ve adapted from a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking On a World of Words with which I’m familiar from What Cathy Read Next. Coincidentally, it falls on a Wednesday but I’m plumping for a monthly, or thereabouts, snapshot, aiming to
A Snapshot of My Reading #1 Read More »