Book news, reviews and recommendations
The second batch of March’s paperbacks kicks off with one that demands a bit of concentration. Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House explores the fallout from a technology that captures our very consciousness through a series of narratives connected by characters all linked to Bix Boulton, the software’s creator. No brief synopsis comes close to encapsulating […]
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March means spring’s on the horizon in my part of the world with the worst over for another year. Lots to look forward to in the book world, too, beginning with Rebecca Wait’s debut I’m Sorry You Feel That Way which has kept its cover sporting last year’s favourite image of a woman face down
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I started the first batch of March titles by mentioning two big books to look out for. The first was Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood about which I have my doubts, the second is Sebastian Barry’s Old God’s Time which blew my socks off. Set in mid-90s Ireland, it follows a recently retired, widowed police officer
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Two big names leapt out of the March schedules for me although I’m not at all sure about the first. The second I’ve already read but I’m saving that for the next instalment. You’ll probably already know about Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood which has been all over social media. It follows the eponymous guerrilla gardening
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I’ve read just one from February’s second batch of paperbacks, attracted by its Berlin setting and its structure. Telling a city’s story through a single building and its inhabitants is such an appealing device. Żanna Słoniowska did it memorably with Lviv in The House with the Stained-glass Window. Emma Harding’s The Berliners – originally published under
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Lots of paperback goodies to look out for this February, several tried and tested by me beginning with Louise Welsh’s The Second Cut, published twenty years after her brilliant debut, The Cutting Room, starred the unforgettable Rilke, given to dicey sexual encounters in Glasgow parks by night, mixing with morally dubious individuals in his job
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I’ve read just one of the titles in February’s second instalment but it may well be the one that scoops the most attention. I enjoyed both The Borrower and The Hundred-Year House so put up my hand for Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You which follows, Bodie, a misfit at the boarding school
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I’ve read two from February’s first instalment of new fiction, both of which deal with families hit by tragedy in very different ways. Laurent Petitmangin’s What You Need from the Night sees an unnamed father, left to bring up his two sons alone after their mother’s death, finding a chasm opening between him and his
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Unusually for me, I’ve read just two of the second batch of January paperbacks. I put up my hand for Neel Patel’s Tell Me How to Be in response to the heartfelt, very personal enthusiasm of its editor. There’s such a difference between that and the hype that so often puts me off. Patel’s debut
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A few of my 2022 favourites are published in paperback in January the first of which is Lee Cole’s quietly accomplished Groundskeeping which follows Owen who’s working as a groundskeeper in order to pay for his writing course. At a college party he meets Alma, the writer in residence, younger than him but with a
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The second instalment of January fiction is all about and written by women beginning with a novel set in a world which tends to be dominated by men. Based on interviews with a female horse trainer, Kathryn Scanlan’s Kick the Latch follows one woman’s career while exploring all aspects of life at the racetrack, from
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