Book news, reviews and recommendations
I finally got around to reading Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Costa First Novel Prize-winning Open Water just before putting my hand up for a copy of Small Worlds. Like many bloggers I follow, I was very taken with it. Hard to imagine that Small Worlds would be better but, for me, it was. Beginning in 2010, […]
Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson: A place of safety and love Read More »
June’s first instalment of paperbacks begins with three novels about which I had my doubts although after reading the first, it ended up on my books of 2022 list. I should have had more faith in Miriam Toews’ ability to overcome the pitfalls of child narration, something I usually avoid like the plague. Fight Night
Paperbacks to Look Out For in June 2023: Part One Read More »
Having enjoyed Sarah Gilmartin’s exploration of grief and family dynamics, Dinner Party, a couple of years ago I was keen to read Service. Even more so when I found it was set in a restaurant. Gilmartin’s second novel follows a celebrity chef faced with a reckoning, his wife who has chosen not to examine his
Service by Sarah Gilmartin: Three sides to a story Read More »
Roland Schimmelpfennig’s clever, smartly structured One Clear Ice-cold January Morning at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century was one of my books of 2018. Set in Berlin’s underworld, Liminal is very different but it also explores the darker side of modern Germany, following a cop whose life has been shattered by a tragic event. Sometimes,
I’m kicking off this second instalment of June’s new fiction with a novel by a writer whose debut had a great deal of prepublication attention. I much prefer Brandon Taylor’s The Late Americans to Real Life but perhaps all that brouhaha had raised my expectations unrealistically high. Reading like a series of intricately linked short stories,
Books to Look Out For in June 2023: Part Two Read More »
At first glance the blurb for Chetna Maroo’s Western Lane didn’t appeal with its mention of squash courts but it’s published by one of my favourite imprints so when it popped through my letterbox, I decided to give it a try. Maroo’s quietly perceptive debut follows a family, paralysed by grief and an inability to
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo: A grief observed Read More »
Freelancing can be a lonely pursuit, the attraction of completing your work swiftly, free of interruptions from colleagues passing the time of day, wearing thin. It’s something I learnt to find a way round when working from home was more of a rarity than it is post-covid. It’s that experience that attracted me to Phoebe
Temper by Phoebe Walker: A year of loneliness Read More »
June’s new fiction begins with two novels from what seems to be a never-ending stream of extremely talented Irish women writers, the first distinctly urban, the second rural. Caroline O’Donoghue’s The Rachel Incident is a witty coming-of-age story about the eponymous Rachel and her gay friend, James, who share a dilapidated house in Cork in
Books to Look Out For in June 2023: Part One Read More »
I loved Katherine Heiny’s Early Morning Riser which put me in mind of Anne Tyler with its astute, funny observations and affectionate characterisation. Her new book, Games and Rituals, is a short story collection but if you’re a Heiny fan who’s not so keen on short fiction, don’t let that put you off. Comprising eleven
Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny: A modern day Anne Tyler Read More »
I’d enjoyed both Harmless Like You and Starling Days so much that I needed no persuasion to pick up Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s The Sleep Watcher which follows a young woman looking back to the summer in which she discovered that her beloved father was not the man she thought he was. The thing about parents
The Sleep Watcher by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: Seeing things as they are Read More »
I’ve long had a weakness for American small town novels. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it’s the idea of a small canvas onto which universal human traits are projected together with a curious nostalgia for a country where I’ve spent quite a few holidays but never felt I’d entirely got to know. Hard to
Five Small Town American Novels I’ve Read Read More »