Book news, reviews and recommendations
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 – From Second Place to Wait for Me, Jack Read More »
I became interested in utopian societies as an idealistic teenager when I learnt about Welsh philanthropist Robert Owen‘s experimental socialist community in New Harmony, Indiana. Then I read about the Whiteway Colony in Gloucestershire whose original owners burnt their deeds in the name of egalitarianism. Anna Neima’s The Utopians explores six such communities, their aspirations,
The Utopians by Anna Neima: ‘Absurdity, possibility and hope’ Read More »
It took me some time to get around to reading a John Boyne novel probably because they tend to be chunksters rather than the pared-back novellas I favour. I took A Ladder to the Sky on holiday to Portugal then read and thoroughly enjoyed The Heart’s Invisible Furies. The Echo Chamber follows the Cleverleys, made
The Echo Chamber by John Boyne; ‘Cancelling the Cleverleys’ Read More »
This is the second set of novels with an art theme in this series of posts. I introduced the first wondering why I’d read so much recent fiction featuring artists, speculating about a publishing trend or that it was simply my own interest in the subject but perhaps it’s because artists often lead interesting lives
Five More Novels I’ve Read About Art Read More »
It was Nickolas Butler’s ringing endorsement that sold Ash Davidson’s Damnation Spring to me. The cover suggested it might have the same gorgeous descriptions of the American landscape I’d loved in his Shotgun Lovesongs and Godspeed. Spanning a single year from 1977-78, Davidson’s tale of environmental despoilation is set in a small Californian community where
Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson: Profit trumps all Read More »
I’ve had Charles Yu’s How to Life Safely in a Science Fictional Universe on my TBR list for quite some time but, as with so many books, never got around to buying it let alone reading it. His new novel sounded intriguing with its premise of a bit-part actor in a perpetual TV series, eyes
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu: Forever the guest Read More »
I failed miserably to find a link between titles for the first batch of September’s paperbacks but this one could be described as about relationships. I’ll begin with friendship and Sigrid Nunez’s What Are you Going Through which explores grief through a terminally ill woman who asks her friend to help her to die, promising
Paperbacks to Look Out For in September 2021: Part Two Read More »
I read Joan Silber’s quietly impressive Improvement back in 2019 ending my review hoping to see more of her novels published here in the UK. I was delighted, then, to spot Secrets of Happiness in the publishing schedules. While Improvement explored the fallout of an accident through all that were affected by it, this new
Secrets of Happiness by Joan Silber: More please! Read More »
I was a wee bit wary of reading Nickolas Butler’s Godspeed. His first novel, Shotgun Lovesongs, had set the bar so high that perhaps a slight feeling of disappointment in his second, The Hearts of Men, was inevitable. Rather than Butler’s beloved Wisconsin, this new novel is set in Wyoming where three men, friends and
Godspeed by Nickolas Butler: Too good to be true Read More »
I like to have a theme running through these preview posts, a pleasing link between one title and the next but this first batch of September paperbacks is made up of such a disparate bunch of books I’ve given up, kicking off with one that I have hopes for despite a string of disappointments. Unsurprisingly,
Paperbacks to Look Out For in September 2021: Part One Read More »
Isn’t that jacket splendid? Strikingly bright with just a hint of something nasty as a cockroach makes its way towards the elegantly attired woman’s manicured hands. Virginia Feito’s Mrs March lives up to that promise, a novel as smartly delivered as its jacket’s design. Married to a successful novelist, Mrs March is beginning to worry
Mrs March by Virginia Feito: A deliciously dark debut Read More »