Book news, reviews and recommendations
Part two of March’s preview begins with a novel I hope to see on a multitude of awards lists. Carys Davies’ Clear is set in 1843 against the backdrop of two massive upheavals in Scottish history: the continuing, brutal clearance of its estates by voraciously greedy landlords and the formation of the Free Church of […]
Books to Look Out For in March 2024: Part Two Read More »
The Lodgers is acclaimed poet Holly Pester’s first novel. I’m partial to novels by poets and the premise of this one sounded interesting: a woman returns to her hometown, subletting an apartment overlooking her mother’s house, imagining the life of the lodger who’s taken over her room in the last house she lived. Sounds simple
The Lodgers by Holly Pester: Living on the margins Read More »
I’d only read one book by a Syrian author – Nihad Sirees’ Tales of Passion – before Samar Yazbek’s novella which seems a bit of a gap. Yazbek is acclaimed, both within her country and outside it, and has written in an impressively wide number of genres, from journalism to television drama. Where the Wind
Spring’s finally on my horizon, optimist as I am. Quite a few goodies to tide us over until it properly arrives beginning with Adelle Waldman’s Help Wanted set in a superstore where the poorly managed, poorly paid logistics team start their day at 3.55 am, restocking the shelves. With a promotion in the offing, the
Books to Look Out For in March 2024: 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 – The Last Banquet to The Eyre Affair 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. Those of us who witnessed the scenes of the Berlin Wall being torn down in 1989, albeit on
Blasts from the Past: Stasiland by Anna Funder (2004) Read More »
It was its Georgian setting that attracted me to Leo Vardiashvili’s debut, Hard by a Great Forest. It’s a part of the world I know little about although what I’ve read suggests that it’s beautiful enough to make me want to visit were it more peaceful. Vardiashvili’s novel takes its narrator back to the country
Hard By a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili: ‘They say you can never go home again.’ Read More »
The second batch of February’s paperback treats begins with one of my books of 2023. Sebastian Barry’s Old God’s Time follows a recently retired police officer whose ex-boss has been told to reopen a cold case which involved two priests, both child sex abusers, one of whom had been brutally murdered while the other was
Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2024: Part Two Read More »
I was delighted when I spotted a new Nathan Hill in the schedules having thoroughly enjoyed The Nix which I’d originally spotted it in Dussmann’s, Berlin’s wonderful bookshop and arts centre, but its chunkster proportions meant I couldn’t buy it on holiday. Wellness weighs in at roughly the same length, exploring a multitude of themes
Wellness by Nathan Hill: Soulmates or placebo love Read More »
I read Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend a few years ago and although I enjoyed it I wasn’t nearly as impressed as many readers I trust so approached The Vulnerables with caution, particularly as it came billed as a pandemic novel featuring a parrot. Set during the spring of 2020, Nunez’s novel follows an unnamed writer
The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez: A treat from start to finish Read More »
I’ve read all but one of the novels in the first part February’s paperback preview, not all of them typical of my usual taste in fiction but that’s not such a bad thing. I’m kicking off with one which should have been the perfect read for me but about which I had mixed feelings. I
Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2024: Part One Read More »