Book news, reviews and recommendations
September’s a lean month for paperbacks but there are a few that stand out, beginning with one of my books of last year which won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and is now longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter is set over a few months in 1962/3 […]
Paperbacks to Look Out For in September 2025 Read More »
Andrev Walden’s Bloody Awful in Different Ways was a huge bestseller in Sweden, winning the country’s prestigious August Prize in 2023. It’s pitched at readers who loved Frederik Bachman’s A Man Called Ove which didn’t appeal to me but I liked the sound of this slice of autofiction which begins with young Andrev, aged seven
I was taken by the blurb for Nell Stevens’s The Original but its 400-page length kept me dithering. It was the puffs from Olivia Laing and Claire Fuller that finally decided me. Largely set in the last year of the nineteenth century, it follows Grace, an unhappy, unwelcome addition to Inderwick Hall, and the dilemma
The Original by Nell Stevens: The value of a copy Read More »
The second batch of September fiction begins with a novel heading straight to my books of the year list. I snapped up Pick a Colour having greatly enjoyed Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Giller-Prize-winning short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife. Her new one is set over one day in a nail salon run by Ning who, in
Books to Look Out For in September 2025: Part Two Read More »
This is the fourth novel by Robbie Arnott I’ve reviewed here. Having been a wee bit reluctant to read Flames, his debut, it ended up on my Booker wishlist as did Limberlost in 2023, and now Dusk which sees the Renshaw twins, desperate for money, on the trail of the eponymous black puma who’s already
Dusk by Robbie Arnott: Beauty and the beast Read More »
I was in two minds about reading Miriam Robinson’s And Notre Dame is Burning, attracted by the idea of a fragmented, non-linear narrative which I often enjoy but wondering if it might be too ambitious for a debut. Robinson’s novel follows Esther over five years or so in which time seems to flatten for her
And Notre Dame is Burning by Miriam Robinson: ‘Do you know this man?’ Read More »
Unsurprisingly, given that publishers have Christmas in their sights come September, a couple of the month’s titles struck me as on their way to the bestseller lists including the first which I’ve already read. The Two Roberts grew out of a fascination with Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun after Damian Barr spotted a social media
Books to Look Out For in September 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 – The Safekeep to Metamorphosis Read More »
This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy into as many hands as I could. Water Music is the first T. C. Boyle novel I read back when he was T Coraghessan Boyle.
Blasts from the Past: Water Music by T. C. Boyle (1981) Read More »
I’ve often mentioned the power of novellas on this blog, how in the right hands a few pages can convey much more than several hundred. Mai Ishizawa’s prize-winning debut, The Place of Shells, is a fine example of that for me. Set during the pandemic, it’s narrated by an unnamed academic from Tōhoku, whose coastline
The Place of Shells by Mai Ishizawa (Transl. Polly Barton): Trauma, grief and memory Read More »
This second instalment of August paperbacks begins with Lissa Evans’s Small Bomb at Dimperley, one of last year’s favourites for me. There’s no money for the patching up Dimperely so desperately needs when Valentine returns from the war in 1945, finding himself elevated to the baronetcy when his missing eldest brother is declared dead, but
Paperbacks to Look Out For in August 2025: Part Two Read More »