Book news, reviews and recommendations
Just back from my Baltic states jaunt – of which more in a few days – and barely unpacked so here’s one I made earlier. September’s traditionally a big month for publishing – Christmas is on the horizon for booksellers even if the rest of us are busy sticking our heads in the sand and […]
Books to Look Out For in September 2015: Part 1 Read More »
Not as spoilt for choice as I’d expected for August paperbacks but there are some excellent treats to look forward to including Xiaolu Guo’s ambitious, Baileys Prize longlisted I Am China, a jigsaw puzzle of a love story, chock-full of well-aimed barbs fired at Chinese politics past and present. Iona Kirkpatrick has been sent a
Paperbacks to Look Out For in August 2015 Read More »
Just before last year’s Man Booker prize winner announcement I wrote a rather disenchanted post about it so you might think that I’ve cast off my world weariness, given the title above. Not entirely, I’m afraid, but I did have to think about it when the lovely people over at Shiny New Books asked if
My 2015 Man Booker wish list Read More »
Yes, it’s that time already, and you might think that the publishing industry expects us all to slip our brains gently out of gear given that it’s summer, but there are a few stimulating novels sprinkled through my August choices, the most enticing of which for me is the weighty A Little Life by Hanya
Books to Look Out For in August 2015 Read More »
Last month, in response to the brouhaha about E L James’ sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey, Sophie Rochester, Director of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, came up with a neat riposte: the Twitter hashtag #BritishwritingisnotallGrey. I’d missed it but Naomi at The Writes of Women wrote a post celebrating it with an excellent list
British Writing is not all Grey Read More »
I’ve read all but two of July’s selection of paperbacks and reviewed four of them which makes this an easy post for me. I’ll start with one I haven’t read but have been eagerly anticipating: Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage and before you castigate me for that missing ‘u’, that’s
Paperbacks to Look Out For in July 2015 Read More »
Topping my wish list for this second July selection is Sarah Moss’s Signs for Lost Children billed as the third part of a loosely linked trilogy which began with Night Waking. Bodies of Light, the second instalment, appeared on the Wellcome Trust Book Prize shortlist for its theme of nineteenth century women in medicine. This
Books to Look Out For in July 2015: Part 2 Read More »
Long experience has taught me that a ‘lost’ novel is often best kept that way so I won’t be including Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman here. Surely the entire world and its dog must know about it by now, anyway. Instead I thought I’d take a look at a few less trumpeted titles due
Books to Look Out For in July 2015: Part 1 Read More »
I’ve been tweeting now for around two years, roughly the same amount of time I’ve been blogging. It has to be said that I’m not a particularly active Twitter member but I was quick to discover the joys of #FridayReads and enthusiastically joined in. For the uninitiated it pretty well does what it says on
FridayReads: Too much marketing? Read More »
This post came out of a conversation with H about a book I’d been reading: I am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits who grew up as a member of Satmar, a small Hasidic sect originating in Romania. H was talking about the flowering of Jewish fiction, particularly in America in the mid- to late 20th century,
The Book of Lights by Chaim Potok: A book that made me forget myself Read More »
I’ve reviewed all but two of the June paperbacks that have caught my eye so forgive me if I cram the lot into a single post and let the reviews speak for themselves. I’ll start with one that I haven’t got around to reading although I’ve had a copy for some time: Sarah Waters’ Baileys
Paperbacks to Look Out For in June 2015 Read More »