Book news, reviews and recommendations
I’m starting this second instalment of January paperbacks with one I’m particularly looking forward to, if only for a vicarious trip to Milan. Tim Parks’ Hotel Milano sees a middle-aged recluse flying to Italy for the funeral of an old friend. Frank is hoping he can enjoy the comfort of his hotel and return to […]
Paperbacks to Look Out For in January 2024: Part Two Read More »
There are some juicy January paperbacks to banish the winter blues beginning with Charmaine Craig’s My Nemesis which explores ideas about feminism and femininity through two women who apparently hold diametrically opposing views on the subject. Tessa is an academic who conceives a cerebral passion for Charlie, a colleague married to Wah. Tessa’s a feminist
Paperbacks to Look Out For in January 2024: Part One Read More »
The second part of January’s preview starts with a crime novel, an uncharacteristic choice for me. I enjoyed Louise Welsh’s The Second Cut so much last year that I put up my hand for To the Dogs which also has a foot in Glasgow’s murky underworld. Professor Jim Brennan is called away from a graduation
Books to Look Out For in January 2024: Part Two Read More »
I’m sure I’ll be casting another look over my shoulder at the reading delights of 2023 before the year’s out but for now I’m looking to the future and finding lots of books to look out for, several of which I’ve already read. I’ve been a Michael Cunningham fan since I read A Home at
Books to Look Out For in January 2024: Part One Read More »
My last review for 2023 is an uncharacteristic one for me: it’s not fiction. Nina Stibbe’s Went to London, Took the Dog is a delightfully easy read, a world away from my usual non-fiction diet of politics or history. It’s her diary of her year lodging with novelist Deborah Moggach, along with her cockerpoo, Peggy,
Went to London, Took the Dog by Nina Stibbe: Diary of a sabbatical Read More »
Much of October was taken up with a rail jaunt around Central Europe, our first since covid struck. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Such an interesting part of the world; definitely worth exploring further. Despite less reading time than usual, two books stand out, the first of which is Jhumpa Lahiri’s exquisite short story collection Roman
Books of Year 2023: Part Four Read More »
We’d come back from Glasgow ready for summer which never quite materialised, or not the long warm days I’d been envisaging so, once again, reading was done on the sofa rather than in the garden, and more of it than I’d originally planned. The first of July’s two books was one of those novels you
Books of Year 2023: Part Three Read More »
After last year’s surprisingly sunny visit to Manchester we decided we’d probably used up our Northern spring good weather luck, heading off to St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex for a short break to see family in April. The month’s reading got off to a brilliant start with ex-bookseller Alice Slater’s Death of a Bookseller which took
Books of Year 2023: Part Two Read More »
I’m feeling quite pleased with myself having pared back this year’s list to twenty books, a first for me, although I’ll have to guard against more sneaking in as I look back over 2023. As usual, I’m planning four posts, one per quarter, beginning with a remarkable piece of writing which got my reading year
Books of Year 2023: 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 – Kitchen Confidential to The Paper Palace 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. A rare non-fiction blast from me, this time reprising Lorna Sage’s Bad Blood, her wonderfully eloquent, witty, heart-wrenching
Blasts from the Past: Bad Blood by Lorna Sage (2000) Read More »