Book news, reviews and recommendations
Two big names leapt out of the March schedules for me although I’m not at all sure about the first. The second I’ve already read but I’m saving that for the next instalment. You’ll probably already know about Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood which has been all over social media. It follows the eponymous guerrilla gardening […]
Books to Look Out For in March 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 – Trust to Bird Cottage 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 into as many hands as I could. Hard to imagine a time when Kate Atkinson wasn’t a literary household name, albeit one seemingly doomed not
Blasts from the Past: Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson (1995) Read More »
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain is one of those books I suspect I’d not have read if I hadn’t been sent it. Proof that stepping outside your comfort zone often reaps rewards. Victoria MacKenzie’s ambitious debut reimagines the lives of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, both of whose books
I’ve read just one from February’s second batch of paperbacks, attracted by its Berlin setting and its structure. Telling a city’s story through a single building and its inhabitants is such an appealing device. Żanna Słoniowska did it memorably with Lviv in The House with the Stained-glass Window. Emma Harding’s The Berliners – originally published under
Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2023: Part Two Read More »
I’m more of a novella than a chunkster reader but now and again one comes along that sounds irresistible. Despite the inevitable comparisons with Succession, which I didn’t get on with at all, Sarah May’s twenty-first century take on William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, looked as though it would fit that bill with its story of
Becky by Sarah May: ’When it comes to the past, I enjoy being flexible with the truth’ Read More »
I’m always pleased to spot a new Philppe Claudel in the offing. I’ve read all his books available in translation from Parfums, a strikingly unusual scent memoir, to the achingly sad novella Monsieur Linh and His Child. All of them share a strong sense of humanity and a beauty of expression as does his new
German Fantasia by Philippe Claudel (transl. Julian Evans): The legacy of war Read More »
Lots of paperback goodies to look out for this February, several tried and tested by me beginning with Louise Welsh’s The Second Cut, published twenty years after her brilliant debut, The Cutting Room, starred the unforgettable Rilke, given to dicey sexual encounters in Glasgow parks by night, mixing with morally dubious individuals in his job
Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2023: Part One Read More »
Sidik Fofana’s Stories from the Tenants Downstairs instantly appealed to me: a tightly linked set of short stories about the tenants of a Harlem apartment block ticked two of my literary boxes, and that cover sealed the deal. Fofana’s collection sees many of the inhabitants of Banneker Terrace threatened with eviction thanks to the new
Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana: No place like home Read More »
I’m not the target market for Monica Heisey’s Really Good, Actually but occasionally I find myself seduced by hype, wanting to know what all the fuss is about. For those who don’t already know, Heisey is a comedian and Schitt’s Creek scriptwriter. Her debut covers a year in twenty-nine-year-old Maggie’s life after her husband takes
Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey: ‘Is everything okay?’ Read More »
I’ve read just one of the titles in February’s second instalment but it may well be the one that scoops the most attention. I enjoyed both The Borrower and The Hundred-Year House so put up my hand for Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You which follows, Bodie, a misfit at the boarding school
Books to Look Out For in February 2023: Part Two Read More »