Susan Osborne, at A Life in Books

Cover image for The Field by Robert Seethaler

The Field by Robert Seethaler (transl. Charlotte Collins: Giving voice to the dead

17 March 2021 / 26 Comments

Back in 2015, I reviewed Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life, a beautifully written novella about a man who’d barely left his mountain hamlet, revealing the richness of even the simplest of lives. The following year’s The Tobacconist, set in Vienna in the months before Hitler annexed Austria, was equally striking raising high hopes for his

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Cover image for Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor

Books to Look Out For in April 2021: Part Two

15 March 2021 / 26 Comments

No contest for the book with which to kick off this second instalment of April’s new fiction. I reviewed Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 four years ago beginning with a paean of praise for this writer who seems to excel himself with each new book. Impossible, then, to resist reading Lean Fall Stand as soon as

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Stella by Takis Würger (transl Liesl Schillinger): In search of truth

12 March 2021 / 14 Comments

Two years ago, I reviewed Takis Würger’s The Club whose exploration of entitlement through the appalling behaviour of an Oxford University boxing club struck horribly familiar chords. Stella, his new novel, also tackles discomfiting territory this time through a love story about a wealthy young Swiss man and the beautiful artists’ model he meets in

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Cover image for The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans

The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans: ‘The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past’

10 March 2021 / 12 Comments

I’d not read anything by Danielle Evans before The Office of Historical Corrections turned up, although the title of her prize-winning, Before You Suffocate your Own Fool Self, had caught my eye. This second collection comprises seven stories, one lengthy enough to qualify as a novella, which explore racism in America and its complicated history.

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Cover image for My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley

Books to Look Out For in April 2021: Part One

8 March 2021 / 20 Comments

April signals spring for most of us in the UK although I tend to get excited about it in early March. This year there’s more hope than usual vested in the longed-for change of weather and the possibility of socialising outside. Plenty of books to keep us occupied if that hope proves unfulfilled, four of

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Six Degrees of Separation – From Phosphorescence to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

6 March 2021 / 36 Comments

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,

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Cover image for Life After Turth by Ceridwen Dovey

Life After Truth by Ceridwen Dovey: Harvard revisited

5 March 2021 / 13 Comments

I can’t resist a novel with a college reunion theme. There’s something about the idea of catching up with a group of people who met when young, although in the case of Ceridwen Dovey’s Life After Truth, the five main protagonists have remained good friends since Harvard, two of them married to each other. Dovey’s

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Cover image for Silence is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar

Silence is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar: Giving voice to the voiceless

3 March 2021 / 14 Comments

I’m not sure what it was about Layla AlAmmar’s Silence is a Sense that made me put my hand up when I spotted it in my Twitter timeline. It’s not one of those titles which seem to be tweeted every half hour or so, although it certainly deserves that kind of exposure. Told through the

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My Wishlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021

1 March 2021 / 26 Comments

Hard as it may seem to credit, it’s already nearly time for the announcement of The Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist: Wednesday, 10th March is the date to add to your jam-packed diary. Only novels written by women in English published between April 1st 2020 and March 31st 2021 qualify. Over the past few years

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We Are Not In The World by Conor O’Callaghan: The unbearableness of loss

26 February 2021 / 10 Comments

Given that it was praised to the skies by the likes of Donal Ryan and John Banville, I’ve no idea how I managed to miss Conor O’Callaghan’s debut, Nothing on Earth, but I did. Fortunately, We Are Not In The World caught my eye on Twitter, looking very much up my literary alley. O’Callaghan’s novel

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Consent by Annabel Lyon: Who gives permission and who is to blame?

24 February 2021 / 16 Comments

Annabel Lyon’s Consent has been on my radar for some time thanks to Naomi and Marcie’s coverage of the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist, always a prize worth keeping an eye on. Both Naomi’s Consumed by Ink and Marcie’s Buried in Print are excellent blogs to follow if you’re interested in Canadian fiction although not nearly

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