Book news, reviews and recommendations
I know very few women scientists. Well to be honest, just two and one of those is a virtual friend met through blogging. Being pigeonholed as an arts person early on no doubt contributed to that but the fact is there are still far more male scientists than women. Arlene Heyman’s debut novel, Artifact, follows […]
Artifact by Arlene Heyman: ‘Too smart for a girl’ Read More »
Publishing schedules are beginning to look much more tempting now that the worst of the pandemic-related slippage has worked its way through, at least let’s hope so. I like to kick off proceedings with a title that made my heart sing when I spotted it and this time it’s Sarah Moss’ Summerwater. From Names for
Books to Look Out for in August 2020: 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 – From What I Loved to A Life of My Own Read More »
Towards the end of 2018 I was sent a review copy of a book that I wasn’t at all sure about. It looked a little too wacky for my taste but the publisher was a favourite of mine so I decided to give it a go. Not only did Robbie Arnott’s Flames end up on
The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott: Dystopia, hope and redemption Read More »
Amanda Craig’s The Golden Rule is the latest in a series of loosely interconnected novels which explore the state of my particular nation. I’m a sucker for this kind of fiction and have enjoyed several of Craig’s contributions to it including The Lie of the Land, a Brexit novel that, for me, was very much
The Golden Rule by Amanda Craig: ‘Do as you would be done by’ Read More »
This second instalment of July paperbacks is a bit of a mixed bunch, two of which I’ve already read although I’ll begin with one that I haven’t. Anne Catherine Bomann’s Agatha sees a 71-year-old psychiatrist with no family or friends eagerly anticipating retirement when a young German woman walks into his clinic and demands an
Paperbacks to Look Out For in July 2020: Part Two Read More »
Caoilinn Hughes’ debut, The Orchid and the Wasp, made a quite a splash in the literary pool when it was published back in 2018. I started it but couldn’t get on with the style so was in two minds whether to read The Wild Laughter when it turned up but Cathy at 746 Books rated
The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes: Brotherly love, or the lack of it Read More »
Part of my attraction to Fracture was its jacket which seemed to fit the title so beautifully. Andrés Neuman’s novel is largely set in Japan and, thanks to BBC4’s excellent series of documentaries about Japanese culture, I knew about the practice of kintsugi: repairing broken porcelain emphasising the cracks rather than disguising them as we
July’s paperback publishing schedules are looking a little more tempting than previous few months’ did, so depleted by cuts and postponements. I’m relieved not to be a magazine reviews editor these days, suddenly faced with all that white space opening up. They, along with publicists, must have been tearing their hair out. This month, I’m
Paperbacks to Look Out For in July 2020: Part One Read More »
I’m not entirely sure I would have read Jean-Baptiste Andrea’s novella with its rather wordy title had it not been for the enthusiasm of the small indie publisher who approached me to review it which would have been a shame. A Hundred Million Years and a Day was a huge literary hit in France last
I spent some time circling Elizabeth Wetmore’s debut. I suspected from its synopsis that it might be a tough read and wasn’t sure I was entirely up to doing it justice, distracted by the pandemic and politics, but with other titles slipping down the publishing schedules while Valentine stayed in place there seemed little choice
Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore: A fine debut Read More »