Book news, reviews and recommendations
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. A rare non-fiction blast from me, this time reprising Lorna Sage’s Bad Blood, her wonderfully eloquent, witty, heart-wrenching …
Blasts from the Past: Bad Blood by Lorna Sage (2000) Read More »
It was the theme of male friendship which drew me to Pulitzer Prize-winning Hua Hsu’s Stay True, far less explored than the female variety in fiction, let alone non-fiction. Written well over two decades after the event, Hsu’s book explores his relationship with his college best friend and the aftermath of Ken’s murder during a …
Stay True by Hua Hsu: Coming of age with grief and guilt Read More »
I couldn’t resist Louise Willder’s Blurb Your Enthusiasm when it popped up on NetGalley many months ahead of publication. That wordplay, of course, only added to the attraction. Willder’s book is all about those 100 or so words, so important in persuading us whether to read a book or not. She should know, she’s been …
Blurb Your Enthusiasm: The A-Z of Literary Persuasion by Louise Willder: ‘Words matter’ Read More »
Almost everything I review on here that’s not fiction is about travel, food or books which tells you something, I guess. Journalist and essayist Rebecca May Johnson’s Small Fires is about cooking and the kitchen – very appropriate given that I’ve recently undergone the upheaval of having our kitchen completely renovated after thirty years – …
Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson: Much spattering in the kitchen Read More »
I’ve been a fan of Amy Bloom’s writing for many years. Both her short stories, collected together in Rowing to Eden, and her novels are marked by clarity, elegance and insight. It’s been over four years since White Houses was published and In Love, her memoir, explains the saddest of reasons why. In 2019, Bloom’s …
In Love by Amy Bloom: ‘He is a strong, determined man of mettle and courage’ Read More »
This is my last review of 2021 and rather like Wednesday’s A Ghost in the Throat, it’s an unusual one for me in that it’s non-fiction and, not only that, it’s a collection of essays, not something I often read. I’m going to try to pick just a few cherries from Ann Patchett’s These Precious …
These Precious Days by Ann Patchett: Living well Read More »
This is my penultimate review for 2021 and it’s an unusual one. Recently published in paperback, Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat made quite a splash back in 2020, winning three awards and shortlisted for several others. Having read it, I can see why. A memoir of obsession, literary detection and motherhood, it’s …
A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa: ‘This is a female text’ Read More »
This is my first non-fiction Five Books I’ve Read post and to no one’s surprise it’s about readers, book collectors and bookshops, although I suppose it could have been about travel or food. Here then are five books I’ve read about the wonderful world of books, each with a link to my review. White Spines …
I became interested in utopian societies as an idealistic teenager when I learnt about Welsh philanthropist Robert Owen‘s experimental socialist community in New Harmony, Indiana. Then I read about the Whiteway Colony in Gloucestershire whose original owners burnt their deeds in the name of egalitarianism. Anna Neima’s The Utopians explores six such communities, their aspirations, …
The Utopians by Anna Neima: ‘Absurdity, possibility and hope’ Read More »
I’m a reader rather than a collector which is probably a good thing, keeping my book acquisitions clear of duplicates (or worse) bought because I couldn’t resist a new edition’s cover. Nicholas Royle is both but his collecting habits are very particular: his imprint of choice is Picador, the white spined variety although he has …
White Spines by Nicholas Royle: Confessions of a Book Collector Read More »
You might be forgiven for thinking that’s a self-referential subtitle but the life it refers to is Michiko Kakutani’s, the New York Times’ book critic from 1983 to her retirement in 2017, renowned for her incisive criticism and knowledge. The beautifully presented Ex-Libris is a testament to her consuming passion for literature, listing over one …
Ex-Libris by Michiko Kakutani (illustrated by Dana Tanamachi): A life in books Read More »