Book news, reviews and recommendations
I’m taking one more look over my shoulder at the end of this strangest of years with a meme that lots of blogger friends posted around mid-December. Like Annabel over at Annabookbel, I’m sticking to books I’ve read in 2020, most with links to reviews on this blog and I’ve also nicked her Covid question. …
The last quarter of the year brought both increasing hopes of a vaccine to liberate us all from Covid’s grip plus the somewhat nervous excitement of an American presidential election together with six more bookish delights for me. September proved to be my best reading month with three treats all from authors whose previous novels …
Summer saw a return to more serious reading after spring’s escapism, perhaps because we were experiencing a little respite from the pandemic in the UK. Coincidentally, both June choices overlapped in terms of their unusual theme, exploring the repercussions of nuclear fission. The first was Stuart Evers’ The Blind Light, a little daunting in its …
Strange to remember writing my books of the year posts for 2019 last December, blissfully unaware of the surreal year that lay ahead for us all. I’ve been one of those fortunate people whose concentration didn’t take too much of a pandemic hit instead burying myself in reading and blogging, finding solace in books and …
Slim pickings for November’s paperbacks with just five that stand out for me, two of which I’ve already read. I’ll begin with one of my favourite books from last year which saw the return of the irascible yet essentially warm-hearted Olive Kitteridge, familiar to fans of Elizabeth Strout’s eponymous Pulitzer Prize-winning book published in 2008. …
Not a huge selection of paperbacks for October but enough to merit two posts I’m pleased to say. I’ve read three of the first batch already including one which at first sight seemed to be a piece of opportunistic publishing. Originally published in the US back in 2011, Tayari Jones’ Silver Sparrow was released here …
Paperbacks to Look Out for in October 2020: Part One Read More »
This October’s publishing schedules has fewer attention-grabbing novels than I’d hoped, given all the slipping and sliding earlier in the year but perhaps November’s Christmas sparklers will be brighter. I’ll begin with Bill Clegg’s The End of the Day. I read his first novel, Did You Ever Have a Family, back in 2015 when it …
Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list, …
Six Degrees of Separation – From Rodham to Spider Read More »
Just a one-part new title preview for September despite it being jam-packed with pandemic-postponed books. I’m beginning with one originally slated for much earlier in the year, Megan Hunter’s The Harpy, which I’ve already read. This brief novella is about a couple in the aftermath of infidelity, narrated from the perspective of Lucy whose husband …
I’m beginning this second instalment of August paperbacks with one I’ve already read. Linda Grant’s A Stranger City looks at how we’re all both connected and unconnected, portraying a post-referendum London through a set of disparate characters brought together by their links with a woman whose body has been pulled from the Thames. Each character’s …
Paperbacks to Look Out for in August 2020: Part Two Read More »
Another year, another Booker Prize longlist in the offing although this year has been far from normal both in the book world and beyond with titles bouncing around the publishing schedules like tennis balls thanks to the pandemic. I’d half expected a postponement of the longlist announcement but the Booker brigade seem to be sticking …