Book news, reviews and recommendations
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. If you’re a regular visitor to this blog you’ve probably twigged that I’m a fan of Irish writing, […]
Blasts from the Past: The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor (2002) 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. Stephen Sherrill’s debut was much talked about just after I started work as a reviews editor. I wasn’t
Blasts from the Past: The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Stephen Sherrill (2000) 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. Barry Unsworth’s Morality Play is set in the late fourteenth century, a time of calamitous upheaval. The country
Blasts from the Past: Morality Play by Barry Unsworth (1995) 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. Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea is a slim novel but it made quite an impression on me, perhaps
Blasts from the Past: By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah (2001) 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. Friends are the new family has become something of a contemporary cliché. Perhaps its origins lie in the
Blasts from the Past: A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham (1990) 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. Hard to imagine a time when Kate Atkinson wasn’t a literary household name, albeit one seemingly doomed not
Blasts from the Past: Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson (1995) 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. Coupling sensual prose with perceptive, sometimes chilling, characterisation, Joanna Briscoe’s Sleep with Me grips from the first page
Blasts from the Past: Sleep with Me by Joanna Briscoe (2005) 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 in as many hands as I could. After the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, it seemed that everyone, particularly American novelists, felt they had
Blasts from the Past: The Submission by Amy Waldman (2011) 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 in as many hands as I could. The Orchard on Fire was the first novel I read by Shena Mackay and I loved it. Childhood
Blasts from the Past: The Orchard on Fire by Shena Mackay (1995) 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. The pleasures of reading fiction are many and varied but broadly speaking they tend to fall into two
Blasts from the Past: Eucalyptus by Murray Bail (1998) 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 in as many hands as I could. Lesley Glaister was one of those writers I kept expecting to break through from relative obscurity and land
Blasts from the Past: Sheer Blue Bliss by Lesley Glaister (1999) Read More »