Book news, reviews and recommendations
If you fancy a good old-fashioned piece of storytelling with beauty, the beast, freaks of nature, love stories, redemption and a faithful, loving pit bull who doesn’t know how to fight I have just the book for you. Alice Hoffman’s new novel has all this plus a hefty helping of suspense. What’s not to like? […]
The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman: A rattling good yarn Read More »
I’ve a weakness for Irish writers many of whom seem to specialise in spare, almost terse yet elegant prose from which the occasional lyrical gem shines out. Colm Tóibín, John McGahern and William Trevor – whose The Story of Lucy Gault is one of the saddest books I’ve ever read – are amongst my favourite
Black Lake by Johanna Lane: A sad story, quietly told Read More »
Right from the start of Robin Black’s powerful first novel we know that Owen, our narrator’s husband, is dead and that it was not a natural death. Refugees from urban life thanks to an unexpected inheritance, Gus and Owen live in an isolated farmhouse in which she paints and he writes, or tries to. Owen
Life Drawing by Robin Black: A study in relationships Read More »
I was attracted to TaraShea Nesbit’s debut as much for its location as for its subject. My attention’s snagged by anything set against the stunning landscape of the American South West – recommendations gratefully received. It looked like a handy antidote to Richard Powers’ cerebral Orfeo but turned out to be very much more than
The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit: An accomplished, unconventional first novel Read More »
This is the third novel I’ve read by Richard Powers – The Echo Maker and Generosity were the first two. Both deal with complex issues in erudite, meticulously crafted prose: The Echo Maker looks at identity and neurology through the plight of Mark Schluter who suffers from Capgras syndrome – an inability to recognise the
Orfeo by Richard Powers: A journey through a very modern underworld Read More »
This is a book I’ve been looking forward to for some time. Novels are so often described as epics – it’s come to be a wearisome cliché – but it was a perfect fit for Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie’s last novel which followed twenty-one-year-old Hiroko Tanaka from the immediate aftermath of Nagasaki in 1945 to
A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie: A story of war, love and empire Read More »
I’ve read both Sarah Moss’s account of her year in Iceland, Names for the Sea, and her first novel, Cold Earth, but haven’t yet got around to Night Waking in which one of the characters from Bodies of Light first makes her appearance, albeit in a collection of letters found two hundred years after her
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss: The nineteenth-century woman’s lot Read More »
I like a nice bit of gothic now and again. Diane Setterfield’s beautifully polished Bellman & Black was the last gothic novel I read, a subtle tale of fulfilled ambition that comes at a terrible price. The Quick is firmly in vampire territory which seems to have been done to death (sorry) over the past few
The Quick by Lauren Owen: A pleasingly chilling tale Read More »
I met up with a friend in Salisbury last week, a city of which I’m very fond although it feels more like a town to me. It’s a lovely train journey from Bath but the countryside was swathed in murk and so a book was needed, one that wasn’t too demanding given that there’s no
Home Fires by Elizabeth Day and an outing to Salisbury Read More »
Adolf Hitler wakes up with a dreadful headache. He’s a little bemused to find himself lying in what seems to be a wasteland. He picks himself up and makes his way to a news kiosk where he’s astonished to find that it’s August 30th 2011. He’s at a loss to know what’s happened but the
After the pyrotechnics of Siri Hustvedt’s new novel last week I felt in need of something a little less taxing, something engaging but not too challenging. Dea Brøvig’s The Last Boat Home looked a likely candidate. It’s a first novel set in a tiny community on the Norwegian coast. Two narrative strands alternate between the
The Last Boat Home by Dea Brøvig: Dark secrets in ’70s Norway Read More »