Book news, reviews and recommendations
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 into as many hands as I could. Friends are the new family has become something of a contemporary cliché. Perhaps its origins lie in the […]
Blasts from the Past: A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham (1990) Read More »
Every year I post two literary prize wishlists in the sure fire knowledge that few if any of those wishes will be fulfilled. That said, they’re fun to do and I always like to see what other readers would like the judges to plump for. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is the one I care
My Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023 Wishlist Read More »
The second batch of March’s paperbacks kicks off with one that demands a bit of concentration. Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House explores the fallout from a technology that captures our very consciousness through a series of narratives connected by characters all linked to Bix Boulton, the software’s creator. No brief synopsis comes close to encapsulating
Paperbacks to Look Out For in March 2023: Part Two Read More »
I’ve yet to get around to reading Rebecca Makkai’s last novel, The Great Believers, but I enjoyed both The Borrower and The Hundred-Year House so put up my hand for a copy of her new novel. I Have Some Questions for You follows Bodie who never felt she fit in at Granby, the boarding school
Door-stopping chunksters often fit the bill if you’re in the mood for a good old-fashioned bit of storytelling but if it’s a succinct, finely-honed literary punch you’re after, it’s hard to beat a novella. This is my fourth Five Novels I’ve Read post devoted to novellas which gives you some idea of how much I
Five Novellas in Translation I’ve Read Read More »
March means spring’s on the horizon in my part of the world with the worst over for another year. Lots to look forward to in the book world, too, beginning with Rebecca Wait’s debut I’m Sorry You Feel That Way which has kept its cover sporting last year’s favourite image of a woman face down
Paperbacks to Look Out For in March 2023: Part One Read More »
I was intrigued by the blurb for Douglas Bruton’s brief novella, With or Without Angels, which described the book as ‘a response through fiction’ to ‘The New World’ an artwork by the late artist Alan Smith, itself a response to the eighteenth-century artist Giandomenico Tiepolo’s ‘Il Mondo Nuovo’. In his acknowledgements, Bruton explains that after
With or Without Angels by Dennis Bruton: A beautiful and original response to art Read More »
I’d not long read Dani Shapiro’s memoir of discovering that her beloved father was not her biological parent, when I spotted her new novel on NetGalley. Identity and family are the overriding themes running through Inheritance and the latter is to the fore in Signal Fires which follows the Shenkmans and the Wilfs who live
Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro: Secrets, lies and the damage done Read More »
I started the first batch of March titles by mentioning two big books to look out for. The first was Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood about which I have my doubts, the second is Sebastian Barry’s Old God’s Time which blew my socks off. Set in mid-90s Ireland, it follows a recently retired, widowed police officer
Books to Look Out For in March 2023: Part Two Read More »
I’m not entirely sure what made me choose Laurent Petitmangin’s What You Need from the Night. Perhaps it was because it’s been quite some time since I’ve read a French novel, or maybe the cover persuaded me with its laughing little boy on his father’s shoulders although the blurb made it clear it wouldn’t be
I’d love to show off my jazz erudition and tell you that I knew the title of Laura Warrell’s debut was a Jelly Roll Morton quote but that’s not the case. Truth be told, I know little or nothing about the genre but I did like the idea of a novel that told the story
Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm by Laura Warrell: Men behaving badly Read More »