Book news, reviews and recommendations
I have to confess that my heart sank when this novel thudded onto the doormat. I’d been looking forward to it very much but it weighs in at just over 600 pages which for a first novel, or any novel come to that, is quite an undertaking. It’s just the kind of book that appeals […]
We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas: A richly textured portrait of a marriage Read More »
This is the second American classic I’ve read in a month; the third if we’re counting discrete works rather than volumes. There must be something in the publishing air. This one’s very different from Nella Larsens’s Quicksand and Passing which explore race and identity in the 1920s in a very personal way. Written in 1959,
A Separate Peace by John Knowles: Hard lessons in life Read More »
Unusually for me, I came to Amy Bloom’s writing through her short stories. Her first collection, Come to Me, was published when I was still a bookseller and I was interested by Bloom’s background as a psychotherapist, made much of when I was pitched the book. I think she was still practising then. It seemed
Lucky Us by Amy Bloom: Families and how to survive them Read More »
You’ve probably heard about this book by now. Even John Humphries sounded interested in it when he interviewed Anna Freeman on a Saturday edition of the Today programme and he hardly seems a fiction fan – that’s more Jim Naughtie’s territory. The hook is an eighteenth-century female pugilist – not something I think I’ve ever
The Fair Fight by Anna Freeman: Definitely comes up to scratch Read More »
Last week I reviewed Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, promising that I’d write about Passing in a separate post. The novellas were written the late 1920s and have recently been reissued in a single volume. Both explore race and identity but while Quicksand is widely considered to be autobiographical there’s no suggestion that Passing
Passing by Nell Larsen: Race, identity and the need to belong Read More »
You may remember Steven Galloway’s name from a few years back when The Cellist of Sarajevo was published. Beautifully written, it’s a poignant novel which offered readers a glimpse of the life under siege that we’d seen playing out surreally on our TV screens only a few years before. It became a massive bestseller, and
The Confabulist by Steven Galloway: A very clever bit of business Read More »
Friendship’s a funny old thing: it can last a life time – I’m often envious when my own friends talk about school friends they’re still close to – or it can be short but intense with a multitudes of variations in between. We talk about relationship breakups but not the breakup of a friendship although
Friendship by Emily Gould: Growing up is hard to do Read More »
I don’t think I’ve read a book in which the prologue is at the back before and in case you’re thinking of correcting me – it isn’t an epilogue. Rebecca Makkai’s novel is a backward looking history of Laurelfield which we first enter as a family home, albeit a somewhat dysfunctional family. You may know
The Hundred-year House by Rebecca Makkai: A backward kind of history Read More »
It’s a little while since I’ve read a Sue Miller novel. She’s an author that I’ve stayed with for many years, starting with The Good Father published way back in 1986. She writes the kind of quietly insightful novel, often set in small-town America, of which I’m very fond. At the core of her writing
The Arsonist by Sue Miller: Reliably good, emotionally intelligent fiction Read More »
There’s a very clear, concise disclaimer at the beginning of Linda Grant’s new novel – ‘This novel is inspired by a particular time in my own life, but the characters and the events are the product of my imagination.’ Whether under instructions from the legal department or because of her own concerns she reiterates it
Upstairs at the Party by Linda Grant: Familar territory for some of us Read More »
I’ve been circling around this book for a while now. I’d read and been impressed by Dinaw Mengestu’s beautifully understated first novel, Children of the Revolution, which won him the Guardian First Book Award, but had found How to Read Air disappointing. Perhaps it was a case of too-high expectations. Anyway, after reading Monique Roffey’s
All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu: A Novel of Love, Friendship and Identity Read More »