Book news, reviews and recommendations
Three German soldiers – Bauer, Emmerich and an unnamed narrator – stride out into the frigid Polish winter, their minds on keeping warm and their empty stomachs. They’ve missed breakfast, determined to avoid the daily round of executions by volunteering to hunt down Jews and bring them back to the camp. Emmerich frets about his […]
It’s been some time since I’ve read a Peter Ackroyd novel – Hawksmoor was wonderful and I enjoyed Chatterton but somehow I couldn’t get on with his later fiction – however something about Three Brothers appealed so I thought I’d try again. Opening in the 1950s it tells the story of the Hanways who live
Three Brothers by Peter Ackroyd: Only connect Read More »
Probably because it was published just before Halloween and because I’d had the living daylights scared out of me three times by The Woman In Black – once by the book, secondly by a TV adaptation many years ago and then again at the theatre by which time you’d think I knew what to expect
Black Sheep by Susan Hill: A moral tale Read More »
I’ve done my best to avoid all the reviews and brouhaha around The Goldfinch justifiable though it is – it’s been a decade since The Little Friend and two since The Secret History had us all entranced – but I wanted to come to it fresh. As a result I missed the Kirsty Wark interview,
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: ‘Density and speed’ – it’s all you want in a novel’ Read More »
When I was a bookseller the phrase ‘gift edition’ was enough to bring me out in a rash. It usually meant a non-book, dressed up in frills and spangles, meant to catch the eye at the till point in the way that sweeties do in the supermarket. They also served as desperation presents on Christmas
All My Friends Are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman: A quirky little classic Read More »
Back in the summer we were invited to an afternoon Pimms party by a couple of our neighbours. Lovely idea for what was turning out to be sunny summer but sadly when the day came it was the wettest Saturday afternoon in August. Being British, though, we didn’t let a bit of rain get in
Petite Mort by Beatrice Hitchman and a wet afternoon Pimms party Read More »
There’s been a lot of talk about long books over the past ten days: the Man Booker-winning The Luminaries weighs in at 832 pages and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, for which many of us have been waiting for a decade, stretches to 784 pages. My heart always sinks a little when a big book comes
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert: Not one unnecessary page Read More »
With its puff from J. Courtney Sullivan, Ann Leary’s The Good House looked a promising choice for my cold-befuddled brain – absorbing but relatively unchallenging. Set in the kind of small New England seaside town where families have lived for so long that there are coves named after them, it’s narrated by Hildy Good, successful
The Good House by Ann Leary: Secrets and lies Read More »
Forgive me if this review is not the best you’ve ever read here: I’m sliding down the same slippery slope H did last weekend and my head is full of cotton wool but having just finished Diane Setterfield’s Bellman & Black I need to get my thoughts down before my brain is entirely sodden. It
Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield: A right gothic tale Read More »
Poor H was afflicted with a nasty cold this weekend, sliding into a runny-nosed heap late Saturday afternoon fit only for sitting in front of the TV watching Gladiator. We have the kind of open plan house in which it’s difficult to get away if one wants to watch what the other doesn’t so I
We are Here by Michael Marshall: Which turns out to be far better than expected Read More »
Those of us who read a lot of fiction have reason to feel a bit smug after The Guardian‘s piece based on research suggesting that reading novels develops empathy. Easy to feel pleased with yourself for doing something which for many of us is an enormous pleasure but I do read fiction to find out
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri: My Man Booker favourite: Read More »