Book news, reviews and recommendations
Roland Schimmelpfennig’s clever, smartly structured One Clear Ice-cold January Morning at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century was one of my books of 2018. Set in Berlin’s underworld, Liminal is very different but it also explores the darker side of modern Germany, following a cop whose life has been shattered by a tragic event. Sometimes, […]
I’m kicking off this second instalment of June’s new fiction with a novel by a writer whose debut had a great deal of prepublication attention. I much prefer Brandon Taylor’s The Late Americans to Real Life but perhaps all that brouhaha had raised my expectations unrealistically high. Reading like a series of intricately linked short stories,
Books to Look Out For in June 2023: Part Two Read More »
At first glance the blurb for Chetna Maroo’s Western Lane didn’t appeal with its mention of squash courts but it’s published by one of my favourite imprints so when it popped through my letterbox, I decided to give it a try. Maroo’s quietly perceptive debut follows a family, paralysed by grief and an inability to
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo: A grief observed Read More »
Freelancing can be a lonely pursuit, the attraction of completing your work swiftly, free of interruptions from colleagues passing the time of day, wearing thin. It’s something I learnt to find a way round when working from home was more of a rarity than it is post-covid. It’s that experience that attracted me to Phoebe
Temper by Phoebe Walker: A year of loneliness Read More »
June’s new fiction begins with two novels from what seems to be a never-ending stream of extremely talented Irish women writers, the first distinctly urban, the second rural. Caroline O’Donoghue’s The Rachel Incident is a witty coming-of-age story about the eponymous Rachel and her gay friend, James, who share a dilapidated house in Cork in
Books to Look Out For in June 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 – Hydra to Vacuum in the Dark Read More »
I loved Katherine Heiny’s Early Morning Riser which put me in mind of Anne Tyler with its astute, funny observations and affectionate characterisation. Her new book, Games and Rituals, is a short story collection but if you’re a Heiny fan who’s not so keen on short fiction, don’t let that put you off. Comprising eleven
Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny: A modern day Anne Tyler Read More »
I’d enjoyed both Harmless Like You and Starling Days so much that I needed no persuasion to pick up Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s The Sleep Watcher which follows a young woman looking back to the summer in which she discovered that her beloved father was not the man she thought he was. The thing about parents
The Sleep Watcher by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: Seeing things as they are Read More »
I’ve long had a weakness for American small town novels. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it’s the idea of a small canvas onto which universal human traits are projected together with a curious nostalgia for a country where I’ve spent quite a few holidays but never felt I’d entirely got to know. Hard to
Five Small Town American Novels I’ve Read Read More »
Despite its billing as a thriller, it was impossible for me to resist ex-bookseller Alice Slater’s debut. Set during the run up to Christmas, her hugely enjoyable novel follows Roach, who’s worked in the dingy Walthamstow branch of Spines for nine years, and Laura, one of three seasoned booksellers parachuted in with the aim of
Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater: A trip down memory lane Read More »
Our main reason for visiting St Leonards-on-Sea was to see family who had recently downsized and moved into a rather lovely apartment there. It was my first visit to this grand Victorian seaside town full of imposing villas, many rundown enough to make them affordable for buyers wanting to move out of their shoebox London
Two Days in Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea and a DNF Read More »