Book news, reviews and recommendations
This time four years ago I posted a review of Elizabeth Baines’ short story collection, Used to Be, which I thoroughly enjoyed making me keen to read her new book, Astral Travel. Framed as a novel within a novel, this immersive story follows an author as she attempts to understand her complicated father by writing […]
Astral Travel by Elizabeth Baines: ‘Your Daddy loves you really’ 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. I don’t remember seeing much coverage of Christodora when it was published here in the UK. A shame.
Blasts from the Past: Christodora by Tim Murphy (2016) Read More »
Time to turn my sights away from 2020, at least my anticipatory reading ones, and explore what’s on offer in 2021. If the January publishing schedules are anything to go by, it will at least offer some distractions if we need them beginning with Raven Leilani’s Luster which has been popping up in my Twitter
Books to Look Out For in January 2021: Part One Read More »
The last quarter of the year brought both increasing hopes of a vaccine to liberate us all from Covid’s grip plus the somewhat nervous excitement of an American presidential election together with six more bookish delights for me. September proved to be my best reading month with three treats all from authors whose previous novels
Books of the Year 2020: Part Four Read More »
Summer saw a return to more serious reading after spring’s escapism, perhaps because we were experiencing a little respite from the pandemic in the UK. Coincidentally, both June choices overlapped in terms of their unusual theme, exploring the repercussions of nuclear fission. The first was Stuart Evers’ The Blind Light, a little daunting in its
Books of the Year 2020: Part Three Read More »
Spring saw several uncharacteristic reads hitting the spot for me, quite possibly as the result of seeking more distraction than usual. April got off to an excellent start with C Pam Zhang’s How Much of These Hills is Gold, set in a reimagined American West in the grips of the Gold Rush. Zhang’s novel is
Books of the Year 2020: Part Two Read More »
Strange to remember writing my books of the year posts for 2019 last December, blissfully unaware of the surreal year that lay ahead for us all. I’ve been one of those fortunate people whose concentration didn’t take too much of a pandemic hit instead burying myself in reading and blogging, finding solace in books and
Books of the Year 2020: Part One Read More »
Given my bah humbug attitude, readers are unlikely to have expected a Christmas read from me but I couldn’t resist a literary trip to the snow-covered German landscape with Urs Faes’ Twelve Nights, set not far from the Black Forest. Beginning just before Christmas, Faes’ brief novella tells the story of Manfred who’s returned home
Twelve Nights by Urs Faes (transl. Jamie Lee Searle): Christmas is coming… Read More »
Marina Kemp’s Nightingale is the second of the five titles shortlisted for the Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year award I’ve chosen to review, both of which I’d planned to read before the judges picked them. In contrast to Naoise Dolan’s sharp, urban Exciting Times peopled with transients, Nightingale takes its time
Nightingale by Marina Kemp: Secrets and lies in rural France 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. I remember being pitched Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl back in 2005 when I was the reviews editor
Blasts from the Past: The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi (2005) Read More »
I’ve often wondered why more fiction isn’t about work given how much of our lives most of us spend doing it which is what drew me to Kikuko Tsumura’s There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job, her first novel to be published here in the UK. Having experienced harassment in her first job, Tsumura