Book news, reviews and recommendations
After a disappointing start, it seems I’m back on a reading roll this month – What in God’s Name, Lamb, The Small Hours, The Last Banquet and now, Ethan Hauser’s The Measures Between Us, have all hit the spot. Set against the backdrop of a storm-hit small town just outside Boston, it opens with a […]
The Measures Between Us by Ethan Hauser: An impressive, eloquently melancholy novel Read More »
Purely coincidentally, I’ve been reading N. M. Kelby’s White Truffles in Winter about the last days of the celebrated chef Escoffier alongside Jonathan Grimwood’s The Last Banquet, set in pre-Revolutionary France. Both are about Frenchmen with a passion for food who love and admire women, both have recipes scattered through them and both men are
This is not a post about lascivious, sensual reading matter: instead it’s the title of a list of books many readers have given up put together by Goodreads. Given my recent disappointments mentioned in Friday’s post I headed off to have a look and found many all too familiar titles – Moby Dick, Gravity’s Rainbow
The Most Abandoned Books Read More »
Back from my Sussex hols the highlights of which were undoubtedly two gorgeous gardens – Great Dixter and Charleston Farmhouse – both the kind that look as if they’ve been causally thrown together although anyone who knows anything about gardening, and I know very little, understands that this kind of planting is the product of
Holiday reading ups and downs Read More »
Thanks to the miracle of a gloriously sunny Bank Holiday there’s been more walking than reading over the past few days. With its episodic style, Evan S. Connell’s Mrs Bridge fitted this kind of weekend nicely. Written in understated elegant prose, it’s made up of 117 short pieces following Mrs Bridge from her newly wed
Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell: A1950s gem Read More »
I hope that all went well for the many booksellers working their socks off yesterday selling Dan Brown’s new novel but I can’t help feeling sad that so much depends upon a handful of authors to keep the book trade afloat. So many excellent books sink without trace or leave little impression. I haven’t read
Alice by Judith Hermann (transl. Margot Bettauer Dembo): Small but perfectly formed Read More »
The Authors’ Club Best First Novel shortlist has just been announced, not one that’s likely to send many readers rushing to check out who’s on it but it’s well worth a look. The prize was established in 1954 and although many of the winners have sunk into obscurity some went on to have a very
Another day, another prize list Read More »
Having enjoyed a couple of holidays in Morocco, I was drawn to Lawrence Osborne’s new novel, The Forgiven, although its synopsis – bickering couple get lost and knock down a young Moroccan on their way to a hedonistic party thrown by two gay men in their lavishly restored desert retreat – seemed unlikely to bring
Morocco bound by Lawrence Osborne Read More »
I read this on the train yesterday, on my way to London to meet M at the wonderful Dishoom in Covent Garden. I usually take a slim novel on a train journey, something around 150-200 pages fits neatly in my bag, and on Wednesday evening I picked out Susana Fortes’s Waiting for Robert Capa. I
Waiting for Robert Capa by Susana Fortes: Love and war Read More »
I’m half-way through Jane Feaver’s An Inventory of Heaven, due out in paperback next month. It’s far from a bad book, although it does explore the rather well trodden territory of childhood and dark secrets, but I’ve been keeping company with Haruki Murakami and Kate Atkinson for most of this month and so perhaps have
A tip top reading month Read More »