Book news, reviews and recommendations
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 »
It’s just an organ – vital, of course – but it simply pumps blood around our circulatory systems in order that we can continue to live. If it weakens, we eventually die. Yet it’s become very much more than that in our lexicon of symbols – we speak from the heart, it’s recognised as the
The Tell-tale Heart by Jill Dawson: What happens when your heart is not your own Read More »
This is one of those novels about which there was a good deal of excited chatter in my neck of the Twitter woods so I approached it with a degree of caution. A few chapters in and any concerns that it might have been overhyped were quashed. It opens in 1943. John Easley finds himself
The Wind is Not a River by Bryan Payton: A love that knows no bounds Read More »
The People in the Photo seemed an entirely appropriate novel to read after finishing Ben Watt’s reconstruction of his parents’ story. It begins with a description of a photograph from a local Swiss newspaper: three young people – two men and a woman – are bathed in sunlight against an Alpine backdrop, wearing white and
I’m pleased to report that my reading mojo is well and truly back: first, Never Mind Miss Fox then The Following Girls dipping into Amber Dermont’s The Starboard Sea in between. Indeed, Louise Levene’s new novel was such an unadulterated treat that it’s hard not to gush about it. Set in the ‘70s it’s a
The Following Girls by Louise Levene: A pitch perfect ’70s satire Read More »
After one war novel too many – I should never have started Toby’s Room when I did – and a weekend of giving up books I was sorely in need of a palate cleanser on Monday. Billed by Virago as having ‘shades of Joanna Briscoe and Maggie O’Farrell’ Olivia Glazebrook’s second novel seemed like it
Never Mind Miss Fox by Olivia Glazebrook: A satisfying, one-sitting read Read More »