Book news, reviews and recommendations
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 »
Where to start with Siri Hustvedt’s new novel? Perhaps with a warning that it’s not an easy read. If it’s good old linear narrative you’re after best look elsewhere. The Blazing World is made up of a collection of documents relating to Harriet Burden – interviews; written statements from her friend, her lover and her
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt: An astonishing piece of work Read More »
Dept. of Speculation is Jenny Offill’s second novel. Her first, Last Things, was published way back in 1999, so long ago that I confess I have no memory of it except that I know that it must have been good as it’s still on my shelves having survived the series of charity shop culls over
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill: A long time coming but well worth the wait Read More »
I read a lot of first novels – there’s always that hope of spotting a shiny new talent. Often, of course, those hopes are dashed but this is not a blog for dashed hopes. You’ll only read about the books I’m happy to recommend here which is why you can trust what may well turn
Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler: An American smalltown gem Read More »
Being a bit of an Elizabeth Strout fan, I was delighted to see her latest novel long listed for Baileys Prize last week. The Pulitzer-prize winning Olive Kitteridge was greatly admired in the States but I’m not sure it made much of an impression here in the UK. She writes the sort of quietly understated,
The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout: A Baileys contender Read More »
There’ve been a few exchanges in my booky little Twitter corner recently about commercial and literary fiction, how one is thought to be more worthy of serious attention than the other. I haven’t been joining in partly because I’m not sure what I think about it. I do know that my own reading would be
Last week was the first birthday of Tinder Press, an imprint of Headline publishers. I remember being excited by the first clutch of titles they published and thought them very canny in transferring Maggie O’Farrell from the Headline Review imprint to Tinder for their launch title, Instructions for a Heatwave. I think they’ve every reason
The Snapper by Brian Kimberling and The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh Read More »
When Helen Oyeyemi was supposed to be studying for her A-levels she was actually busy writing her first novel, published in 2005. I was the reviews editor for Waterstone’s Books Quarterly at the time and a quick skim of The Icarus Girl was enough for me to make it a lead review. I commissioned Lesley
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi: A fabulous tale of race and identity Read More »