Book news, reviews and recommendations
Jen Beagin’s Pretend I’m Dead comes adorned with a ‘laugh-out-loud’ puff on its jacket, although it was the New Mexico setting that was the attraction for me. It’s about twenty-four-year-old Mona who cleans houses for a living, falls hard for a junkie who disappears then takes herself off to Taos. Not perhaps the most inspiring […]
Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin: Smart, funny and dark Read More »
In his touching Foreword to Girl, Balancing and Other Stories, Helen Dunmore’s son, Patrick Charnley, tells us that she had discussed with him the possibility of a collection of short stories to be published after her death. Charnley mined his mother’s papers and laptop, gathering together thirty-three pieces written in the two decades since Dunmore’s
Girl, Balancing by Helen Dunmore: An unexpected, very welcome treat Read More »
We all love lists, don’t we. They’re irresistible to bookish nosy-parkers like me and once we’ve seen one it’s hard not to start putting together our own version, perhaps first in our own heads but before long committing them to screen beckons. So it was with Paula’s My One-Hundred-Book-Library way back in May, then I
My One-Hundred-Book Library Read More »
I was looking for a novel to get stuck into having just given up one I’d been eagerly anticipating but which proved to be disappointing. Set during the 2011 London heatwave, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s debut, The Tyranny of Lost Things, neatly filled the gap. No one’s warned Harmony about the unearthly shrieks of the elderly
The Tyranny of Lost Things by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett: Communes and how to survive them Read More »
This seems to be the year of the novella for me helped along by Madame Bibi who devoted the whole of last month to the form. Set in a small Irish town, Rebecca O’Connor’s He Is Mine and I Have No Other may be short on pages but it’s devastating in its revelation of tragedy,
He Is Mine and I Have No Other by Rebecca O’Connor: Secrets and Lies Read More »
I wasn’t at all sure that I was going to read Meet Me at the Museum. I thought it might be a little too sentimental for my cynical literary heart but a blow to the head which landed me briefly in A & E and left me with a several stitches, a few staples and
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson: Never too late to change 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 Next Step in the Dance is one of those novels that inexplicably – to me, anyway –
Blasts from the Past: The Next Step in the Dance by Tim Gautreaux (1998) Read More »
I read Curtis Sittenfeld’s The American Wife on holiday quite some time ago and found it hard to drag myself away from. Those who’ve read it will know that the titular wife is loosely based on Laura Bush which certainly added spice to the reading but the quality of Sittenfeld’s writing would have kept me
You Think It, I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld: Appearances can be deceptive Read More »
I reviewed Louise Levene’s The Following Girls here just over four years ago. I loved it – a pitch-perfect satire on ‘70s schoolgirl life whose period detail rang more than a few bells for me. I can’t vouch for the authenticity of that detail in Happy Little Bluebirds, set in Hollywood just over a year
Happy Little Bluebirds by Louise Levene: A Hollywood romp Read More »
I reviewed Lena Andersson’s sharply observed, witty novella Wilful Disregard here a couple of years ago. It’s a study in obsession that has you squirming in your seat. Acts of Infidelity sees its main protagonist, Ester Nillson, once again in the grips of monomania, this time for Olof who is performing in her play, Threesome, about
Perhaps because I’ve only lived in one country, I’m perennially attracted to the immigrant experience in fiction which is why Elaine Castillo’s debut caught my eye. Set in the Californian city of Milpitas in the early ‘90s, it’s about a Filipino community and I’m ashamed to say that before I read it I knew next
America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo: Home is not necessarily where the heart is Read More »