Book news, reviews and recommendations
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 »
Unlike the first, this second instalment of July’s preview begins with a book by a lesser known author, Robbie Arnott’s The Rain Heron, which I’ve already read. Set some time after a military coup against the backdrop of a world beset by weather extremes, Arnott’s beautifully expressed novel explores themes of love, redemption and hope
Books to Look Out For in July 2020: Part Two Read More »
Many years ago, I was commissioned to write a reading guide for Joanna Briscoe’s Sleep with Me. Its perceptive exploration of desire and manipulation in a three-cornered relationship read like a modern take on Simone de Beauvoir’s She Came to Stay but with the page-turning pace of a thriller. I loved it. Hopes were high
The Seduction by Joanna Briscoe: Manipulation, obsession and dark secrets Read More »
Regular visitors may have noticed that I’m much more of a novella than a chunkster kind of reader, favouring concision over what so often turns into waffle, but I was attracted to Stuart Evers’ The Blind Light by its premise despite its 540+ pages. Spanning six decades, Evers’ novel tells the story of post-war Britain
The Blind Light by Stuart Evers: A tale of two families and a country Read More »
Several titles are having their second outing here thanks to pandemic-related postponements, but not the book I’m most eagerly anticipating which was originally to be published in May. I remember rattling through Curtis Sittenfeld’s riveting fictionalised biography of Laura Bush, American Wife, one holiday in North Norfolk over a decade ago. I was delighted, then,
Books to Look Out For in July 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 Normal People to Meet Me at the Museum Read More »
Everything about Nick Bradley’s The Cat and the City appealed to me: its jacket, structure, setting and, yes, that cat. Set in Tokyo, Bradley’s episodic novel follows a set of characters through their teeming city as it prepares to play host to the Olympics, each of whose lives are touched by a very particular cat:
The Cat and the City by Nick Bradley: A most unusual feline Read More »