Book news, reviews and recommendations
it was the structure of Anne Griffin’s When All is Said that first caught my eye and when I realised she’d been a bookseller with Waterstones it went straight on my list. John Boyne’s name sits proudly on the back of my proof under a glowing puff, another Waterstones alumni. Spanning a single night, most […]
When All is Said by Anne Griffin: Raising a glass or five Read More »
I rarely read dystopian fiction, mostly because the current state of the world feels grim enough to me, but Tünde Farrand’s Wolf Country comes from Eye Books, the same company who published the impressive An Isolated Incident, which persuaded me to give it a try. Set in 2050, Farrand’s novel explores a world gripped by
Wolf Country by Tünde Farrand: All too plausible Read More »
Regular readers may have noticed I’ve a weakness for Irish writing. It was that and the premise of Billy O’Callaghan’s My Coney Island Baby that attracted me to it. Two lovers, engaged in a long affair, meet for an afternoon once a month, a welcome interval in their humdrum marriages. Now each is faced with
My Coney Island Baby by Billy O’Callaghan: Love in the afternoon Read More »
The Gunners is built around a structure that rarely fails to attract me: a group of people, once friends as children or young adults, are brought together by an event which affects them all. Weddings and funerals are a favourite trigger for this kind of reunion and in the case of Rebecca Kauffman’s novel it’s
The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman: The Big Chill reprised Read More »
I’ve yet to read The Door, Madga Szabó’s best known novel, and I made the mistake of reading Iza’s Ballad on holiday, failing to give it the quiet attention it needed. Nothing to distract me from Katalin Street, enjoyable or otherwise. First published in 1969, it explores the aftermath of the Second World War through
Katalin Street by Madga Szabó (transl. Len Rix): The past is another country Read More »
I read Delphine de Vigan’s Based on a True Story around this time last year and knew it would be one of my books of the year. I was delighted, then, when I spotted Loyalties on the publishing horizon. It tells the story of a young boy, caught up in the fallout from a bitter
Loyalties by Delphine de Vigan (transl. George Miller): Silence is not always golden Read More »
I couldn’t resist the blurb for Oyinkan Braithwaite’s debut. A woman is about to sit down to supper when her sister calls. She’s killed another man and needs Korede’s peerless cleaning skills. Set in Lagos where Korede is a nurse and Ayoola charms men, My Sister, the Serial Killer is a short, sharp blackly funny
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite: Doing the dirty work Read More »
A very happy 2019 to you! I’m starting my posting year with 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 into as many hands as I could. I fell in love with this book to
Blasts from the Past: Brightness Falls by Jay McInerney (1992) Read More »
I’m finishing this year’s posts with a round of reading bingo, yet another chance to mention some of my 2018 favourites plus work in a few more that didn’t appear in my books of the year for one reason or another. So, after a good deal of flicking back through this year’s reading, here’s my
Reading Bingo 2018 Read More »
The heading for this post could just as easily be 10, 15 or even 50 Irish books I’ve read. So much of the quietly elegant, understated writing I admire turns out to be by Irish authors. Their work is often tinged with more than a little melancholy, perhaps only to be expected given their country’s
Five Irish Books I’ve Read Read More »
Jamie Guiney’s collection first caught my eye at What Cathy Read Next. It was its striking jacket that snagged my attention, perfectly fitting its theme with four figures of different ages making their way up a staircase towards a halo although several of Guiney’s characters are more likely to be travelling downwards towards a rather
The Wooden Hill by Jamie Guiney: Stairway to heaven? Read More »