Book news, reviews and recommendations
I was stunned to find two decades had passed since I’d read Personal Velocity, Rebecca Miller’s first collection. Time does funny things as you get older. Perhaps better known as a filmmaker, Miller adapted both her short stories and her equally enjoyable novel, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, for the screen. Comprising seven stories, […]
Total by Rebecca Miller: Written with a filmmaker’s eye Read More »
It feels like a very long time since Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire dropped through my letter box and indeed it is five years but given all that’s happened in the world, it seems much longer. I’ve read all her novels and, despite enjoying each of them, Burnt Shadows remained my favourite but with its exploration
Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie: The personal and the political Read More »
This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could. The Orchard on Fire was the first novel I read by Shena Mackay and I loved it. Childhood
Blasts from the Past: The Orchard on Fire by Shena Mackay (1995) Read More »
I’m always delighted to see a new Kate Atkinson in the publishing schedules, a treat to look forward to. Loosely based on the life of Kate Meyrick, Shrines of Gaiety takes us back to Soho in 1926, long before gentrification, when it was home to nightclubs offering a whole host of delights, not all of
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson: ‘Decadence piled upon decadence’ Read More »
I have no idea how I’ve managed not to come across Yiyun Li’s writing before. She has quite a substantial backlist which somehow passed me by. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was that arresting cover that caught my eye on Twitter but it was the blurb that made me want to read it. Li’s novel is the
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li: ‘I was a whetstone to Fabienne’s blade’ Read More »
H and I were worn out after a summer of house renovations plus a couple of minor but debilitating health problems. We had two Eurostar tickets booked back in early 2020 before Covid smacked the world round the face and we decided to use them to explore the Netherlands having visited Amsterdam many times but
Nine Days in the Netherlands and Just One Book Read More »
It’s been a decade since A. M. Homes’ May We Be Forgiven was published so I was more than keen to read The Unfolding, particularly as the blurb suggested a state of the nation novel, although in this case it’s a look back at that state when the seeds of what was to come eight
The Unfolding by A. M. Homes: ‘What Comes Next?’ Read More »
I’m an enthusiastic fan of Joan Silber’s fiction having loved both Improvement and Secrets of Happiness and was delighted to find that not one but two of her backlisted books were to be published here in the UK. Both come billed as linked short stories, my favourite kind of collection. I’ve plumped to review Fools
Fools by Joan Silber: More please (reprised)! Read More »
Two things attracted me to Joanna Campbell’s Instructions for the Working Day: firstly, its setting in the old East Germany which I’ve visited a few times; secondly, Claire Fuller’s puff extolling its virtues. Set in a dilapidated village, Campbell’s novel follows Neil Fischer who has inherited this settlement from his father whose childhood home it
Instructions for the Working Day by Joanna Campbell: The high cost of freedom Read More »
I often read for the writing as much as for storytelling and although I rarely read poetry, I’ve found that novels by poets are often written with a pleasing attention to language, each word carefully chosen and not one wasted. Below are five favourite novels by poets, all with links to my reviews. Helen Dunmore
Five Novels I’ve Read by Poets Read More »
I was attracted by the blurb for Colleen Hubbard’s Housebreaking which suggested a satisfyingly dysfunctional family set up. It also seemed appropriate given that I had a houseful of builders when I read it, thankfully doing the opposite of Hubbard’s main protagonist who hits on a novel way to prevent the family she detests from
Housebreaking by Colleen Hubbard: Tearing down the house Read More »