Book news, reviews and recommendations
I was attracted to the premise of Pamela Erens’ slim, third novel before I remembered that I’d already read her second, The Virgins, set against the backdrop of a New England school rife with speculation about the golden couple of its senior year. Eleven Hours is entirely different. The titular hours are the length of
Eleven Hours by Pamela Erens: Hard labour Read More »
Those much over-used epithets ‘epic’, ‘sweeping’ and ‘saga’ are useful signals when they crop up in press releases, semaphoring that the book in question is probably not for me. To be fair, they’re not words used to describe Sana Krasikov’s The Patriots but just for once they seem appropriate. This doorstopper of a novel, apparently
The Patriots by Sana Krasikov: Here we go again… Read More »
Sara Baume’s Spill Simmer Falter Wither was one of my favourite books of 2015. Deeply rooted in the natural world, it’s filled with wonderfully poetic descriptions. The sheer musicality of its language captivated me. I was, of course, hoping for the same from Baume’s new book given that it, too, seemed to have its feet
A Line Made by Walking by Sara Baume: ‘Barely there’ Read More »
I tend not to get caught up in literary prize fever these days but there is one for which I make an exception – The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction whose longlist is due to be announced next Wednesday. Only novels written by women in English published between April 1st 2016 and March 31st 2017
My wish list for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2017 Read More »
Jake Arnott’s first novel, The Long Firm, was published way back in 1999. I was a huge fan: he summoned up London’s underworld in prose as sharp as a ‘60s mobster’s suit, expertly blending fact with fiction. A hard act to follow, then, and sorry to say Arnott’s never quite matched it for me but
The Fatal Tree by Jake Arnott: A rollicking tale of thieves and whores Read More »
Sometimes you come across a debut so striking that it leaves you wondering how the author’s second novel can possibly match it. It’s already happened to me once this year with Jennifer Down’s compassionate, clear-eyed and lovely Our Magic Hour. Emily Ruskovich’s Idaho is very different but equally impressive, both in its writing and its
Idaho by Emily Ruskovich: Imagining the unimaginable Read More »
Last month I posted a review of Addison Jones’ Wait for Me, Jack, a novel about a long marriage which survived a multitude of difficulties, the premise of which I found fascinating. As you can tell from the title, Katie Kitamura’s A Separation is the other side of that coin, a marriage that doesn’t endure.
A Separation by Katie Kitamura: Ties that can’t be unbound Read More »
Gwendoline Riley is one of those authors whose work I feel I should have read before now but for some reason I’ve never got around to it. She’s quietly gathered a good deal of acclaim over the years since her first novel, Cold Water: First Love is her fifth. Given its title, you could be
First Love by Gwendoline Riley: A pin-point sharp novella Read More »
Hiromi Kawakami’s quietly charming tale of a young, slightly awkward woman and her eccentric colleagues, The Nakano Thrift Shop, was one of my books of last year. It’s written in the same understated style as the rather more melancholic Strange Weather in Tokyo, a style of which I’m particularly fond. Unsurprisingly, I was hoping for
It was impossible for me to read this collection without thinking of breach, Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes’ short stories about refugees living in Calais’ now disbanded Jungle. Whereas breach is based on Popoola and Holmes’ research carried out in and around Calais, The Refugees was written by an author who fled with his parents
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen: Listen up, Mr President 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 into as many hands as I could. I first heard about The Cutting Room when I began what turned into a decade-long stint as the
Blasts from the Past: The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh (2002) Read More »