Book news, reviews and recommendations
Reviews of non-fiction are a rarity here – this is only my second this year – but arriving home from holiday, my heart sank at the prospect of winter which is what prompted me to read Kari Leibowitz’s book. How to Winter grew out of her PhD research after an article she wrote for The […]
How to Winter by Kari Leibowitz: Learning to love it Read More »
The Second World War and its aftermath shaped much of the second half of the twentieth century, economically, politically and socially. I’ve not read much fiction set during the war but the five below – all written long after the event – share that backdrop in one way or another, all with a link to
Five Books I’ve Read Set in the Second World War Read More »
I snapped up Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Pick a Colour as soon as I spotted it on NetGalley having enjoyed her 2020 Giller-Prize-winning short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife, in which she writes about the immigrant experience. Her new one is a novella set over one day in a nail salon run by Ning. They all
Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa: A day in the life Read More »
This month’s snapshot includes the follow-up to a novel I read well over twenty years ago, a short story collection popular with bloggers a while back and an account of a garden restoration which draws on art, literature and history. The novel I’m reading is Michael Bracewell’s Unfinished Business, a sequel of sorts to The
A Snapshot of My Reading #8 Read More »
This second batch of November titles begins with one I’m particularly keen to read. John Tottenham’s Service sees John working as a bookseller in Los Angeles having failed at journalism and writing fiction. Now in his late forties, he’s dismayed at working in something he considers beneath him, irritated by his privileged customers’ demands, out
Books to Look Out For in November 2025: Part Two Read More »
As he mentions in his acknowledgements, Damian Barr’s The Two Roberts grew out of a fascination with Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun after he spotted a social media post during lockdown. The two Roberts, as they came to be known, were working class Scottish artists who met on their first day at the Glasgow School
The Two Roberts by Damian Barr: ‘The Golden Boys of Bond Street’ Read More »
H and I had planned a German rail jaunt which would take us back to Budapest but reports of Deutsche-Bahn’s service were so discouraging we decided to give it a miss using Salzburg as our starting point instead. Best skip to the end if you’re only here for books: this will be a long one.
Eight Days in Austria, Two Days in Switzerland, Five Days in France and Three Books Read More »
I’ve read three titles from the first part of November’s preview, beginning with Olivia Laing’s The Silver Book. Set during Italy’s Years of Lead, marked by atrocities and violent clashes between the extreme left and right, it follows Nicholas who’s fled London for Venice. After a chance encounter with renowned costume and set designer, Danilo
Books to Look Out For in November 2025: 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 – I Want Everything to The Tempest Read More »
This is my second post on the theme of long relationships, offering a rather more negative view than the first apart from the last novel which takes an unusual approach along the lines of roads not travelled. All have links to longer reviews on my blog. We know from the start of Philip Teir’s novel
Five More Novels About Long Relationships I’ve Read Read More »
I was delighted to spot what I thought was a new novel from Miriam Toews on NetGalley which turned out to be a brief memoir but I decided to put up my hand for it anyway. A Truce That is Not Peace is dedicated to Toews’s sister Marjorie who took her own life in 2010.
A Truce That is Not Peace by Miriam Toews: ‘Why do I write? Because she asked me to’ Read More »