Book news, reviews and recommendations
I’m a reader rather than a collector which is probably a good thing, keeping my book acquisitions clear of duplicates (or worse) bought because I couldn’t resist a new edition’s cover. Nicholas Royle is both but his collecting habits are very particular: his imprint of choice is Picador, the white spined variety although he has […]
White Spines by Nicholas Royle: Confessions of a Book Collector Read More »
September may not be as jampacked with potential goodies as I might like but there are several titles that shine out like a beacon beginning with Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World Where Are You. Readers would have to have been living on Mars not to know about this one by an author who arouses feelings of
Books to Look Out For in September 2021 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 – From Postcards from the Edge to The Book of Lights Read More »
Despite the fact that I rarely read poetry, I’m a sucker for novels by poets hence the attraction of Daisy Lafarge’s Paul which also promised a vicarious trip to France, somewhere I’m unlikely to visit in reality for a while. Spanning four weeks of a hot summer, Lafarge’s debut follows Frances who has volunteered to
Paul by Daisy Lafarge: Revisiting Noa Noa Read More »
It’s that old art theme again. Given the popularity of my Five Books I’ve Read… on the subject, it’s clear I’m not the only reader who favours it. Australian author Alison Booth’s The Painting has the additional lure of being partly set in Budapest which I loved when we visited it back in 2017. Set
The Painting by Alison Booth: The best kind of restitution Read More »
I’ve a feeling if I continue reading as many fine novellas as I have over the past few years, I may have to include an entry on this blog’s menu devoted to them. I’m a great fan of economy of style, leaving much unsaid for readers to infer, which makes the form tailor made for
Five More Novellas I’ve Read Read More »
As regular readers will know, I can’t resist a novel with an art theme which is why I put up my hand for a copy of Howard Cunnell’s The Painter’s Friend. That and the memory of the praise heaped upon his memoir, Fathers and Sons, which explored his own relationship with his father as his
The Painter’s Friend by Howard Cunnell: ‘The Source of Art is the Life of a People’ Read More »
I’m incapable of resisting a novel with a Cape Cod summer setting. Something about families thrust together in unaccustomed closeness, brought face to face with their pasts, usually with a few dark secrets thrown in, plus lovely descriptions of the New England coast. There’s usually one every year and this year’s is Miranda Cowley Heller’s
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller: ‘This is the end of a long story’ Read More »
Only enough August paperbacks to fill one post, I’m afraid, half of which I’ve read including one reissue from quite some time ago. I’ll start with Jenni Fagan’s wonderful slice of feminist gothic, Luckenbooth, which spins the stories of the inhabitants of a many-floored Edinburgh tenement over nine decades, beginning with the arrival of the
Paperbacks to Look Out For in August 2021 Read More »
I seem to have been on a novella roll this year: Wherabouts, Blue Highway, Assembly and Stella to name but four outstanding ones. Jo Hamya’s Three Rooms looked like a possible addition to that list with its premise of a young woman who passes through the titular three rooms, barely scraping a living over the
Three Rooms by Jo Hamya: Just passing through Read More »
When I first started this year’s Booker Prize wish list, I found it a bit of a struggle. Several of the books I’ve loved most this year have been translations – Jhumpa Lahiri’s Wherabouts, for instance – and obviously those don’t qualify. Then I read a novel I wanted to include at the last minute
My 2021 Booker Wish List Read More »