Book news, reviews and recommendations
December’s always a thin month for new titles but a few from indies look worth exploring, all but one with a political flavour. Originally published in 1979 and now appearing posthumously for the first time in the UK, Fanny Howe’s Holy Smoke comes billed as ‘an account of the frenzy and paranoia of US politics […]
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Another thin month for paperback goodies but there are a few that’ve caught my eye. Beginning in the 1970s, Jami Attenberg’s A Reason to See You has an appealing premise, following a mother and her daughters over forty years of social change. After the death of their father, Shelly heads for the West Coast, working
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This second batch of November titles begins with one I’m particularly keen to read. John Tottenham’s Service sees John working as a bookseller in Los Angeles having failed at journalism and writing fiction. Now in his late forties, he’s dismayed at working in something he considers beneath him, irritated by his privileged customers’ demands, out
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I’ve read three titles from the first part of November’s preview, beginning with Olivia Laing’s The Silver Book. Set during Italy’s Years of Lead, marked by atrocities and violent clashes between the extreme left and right, it follows Nicholas who’s fled London for Venice. After a chance encounter with renowned costume and set designer, Danilo
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Only a few paperbacks caught my eye for October, probably because it’s prime time horror season which I rarely read. There are a few gems appearing on the horizon, though, including two favourites from last year. I was so impressed by singer-songwriter Malachy Tallack’s That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz, I included it on my Booker wish
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Slim pickings for October’s new fiction with a couple outside my usual literary territory including Harriet Lane’s Other People’s Fun which sees Ruth facing an empty nest and the end of her marriage while enduring a humdrum job. Her tedium is brightened by the reappearance of Sookie, confident, vivacious and keen to be Ruth’s pal
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September’s a lean month for paperbacks but there are a few that stand out, beginning with one of my books of last year which won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and is now longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter is set over a few months in 1962/3
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The second batch of September fiction begins with a novel heading straight to my books of the year list. I snapped up Pick a Colour having greatly enjoyed Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Giller-Prize-winning short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife. Her new one is set over one day in a nail salon run by Ning who, in
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Unsurprisingly, given that publishers have Christmas in their sights come September, a couple of the month’s titles struck me as on their way to the bestseller lists including the first which I’ve already read. The Two Roberts grew out of a fascination with Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun after Damian Barr spotted a social media
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This second instalment of August paperbacks begins with Lissa Evans’s Small Bomb at Dimperley, one of last year’s favourites for me. There’s no money for the patching up Dimperely so desperately needs when Valentine returns from the war in 1945, finding himself elevated to the baronetcy when his missing eldest brother is declared dead, but
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August’s first batch of paperbacks begins a step or two outside my usual reading territory with Sam Mills’s The Watermark. Trapped in reclusive, once renowned author Augustus Fate’s work-in-progress, Jaime and Rachel are desperately trying to escape. To do so they move from Victorian Oxford to utopian Manchester landing themselves in a Russian winter before
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