Book news, reviews and recommendations
There’s something very attractive about a slim novel which encapsulates the life of an ordinary person, someone whose life might well be judged narrow by those who stride across the world’s stage. Mary Costello’s very fine Academy Street springs to mind – I’m still trying to work out why it failed to appear on the […]
Sarah Moss’s excellent Bodies of Light appeared on the Wellcome Trust Book Prize shortlist for its theme of nineteenth century women in medicine earlier this year. Signs for Lost Children is its sequel, picking up Ally and Tom’s story from where Bodies of Light left off. Newly married, they face separation as Ally practices as a
Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss: What Ally and Tom did next Read More »
Jo McMillan’s debut has an unusual subject for what is essentially a commercial novel: life in the 1980s German Democratic Republic as seen through the eyes of Tamworth’s only deeply committed Communist and her teenage daughter. That alone would have been enough to catch my eye but two trips to Berlin, where commemoration of the
Motherland by Jo McMillan: From Tamworth to Berlin with love Read More »
I thoroughly enjoyed My Salinger Year, Joanna Rakoff’s memoir of her time as a literary agent’s assistant, and was pleased to hear that her novel was to be published in the UK. It’s been available in the States for a few years although its reception seems to have been somewhat mixed. I’d also heard that
A Fortunate Age by Joanna Rakoff: A enjoyable literary soap opera Read More »
I wasn’t particularly keen on Jami Attenberg’s The Middlesteins so you may wonder why Saint Mazie caught my attention: Mazie was the subject of a short essay by Joseph Mitchell first published in The New Yorker and included in his excellent collection Up in the Old Hotel. Like many of Mitchell’s subjects Mazie’s story is
Saint Mazie by Jami Attenberg: ‘Queen of the Bowery’ Read More »
Perhaps it’s because those of us in the privileged developed world are living longer – that and the advent of a new century – but there seems to be a little trend for novels written from the point of view of a centenarian bystander, someone who’s rubbed shoulders with those who’ve shaped our world for
This is my first Gerbrand Bakker. I’ve been aware of a good deal of interest and acclaim around his books for a while but somehow hadn’t got around to him. With its title and glorious blue-skied cover promising summer it seemed appropriate to pick up his new novel on one of the several miserably cold,
June by Gerbrand Bakker (transl. David Colmer): Deceptively simple Read More »
There’s always a moment of worry when you’re about to plunge into a book you’ve been looking forward to for some time. I remember Belinda McKeon’s Solace being surrounded by a great deal of pre-publication buzz, lots of well-known names singing its praises one of whom was Colm Tóibin which made me pay more attention
Tender by Belinda McKeon: Enduring love Read More »
Despite the uncertainty of the weather here in the UK I seem to have veered off into summer reading territory this week with the previous post on The Sunlit Night and now this one. Laura Barnett’s new novel stands out a mile in the publishing schedules as that precious thing: a strong commercial novel, cleverly
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett: The three faces of Eva and Jim Read More »
I’m a sucker for anything Scandi these days – I blame BBC4 – which is why I was attracted to Rebecca Dinerstein’s idiosyncratic first novel. I wasn’t at all sure about it at first – I thought it might be a little too whimsical and that cover is enough to send me scrabbling for something
The Sunlit Night by Rebecca Dinerstein: An endearing bit of eccentricity Read More »
For those of us who’ve come to know and love Kent Haruf’s quietly brilliant novels set in the small town of Holt, Colorado, news of a new one is cause for celebration but this time the joy is muted. Haruf died last year and this is his last book. His insightful writing is clean and
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf: Holt’s last hurrah Read More »