Book news, reviews and recommendations
I seem to start most of these posts with promises of many treats, or potential treats, on the paperback horizon and May’s no exception with publishers not yet assuming that we’ve put our brains away in preparation for summer reading. At the top of May’s goodie list for me is Megan Hunter’s The End We […]
Paperbacks to Look Out for in May 2018: Part One Read More »
More than once I’ve proclaimed myself not to be a thriller fan on this blog, usually before going on to review one, so it may seem surprising that several of the books in the second part of May’s preview appear to have a definite thread of suspense running through them beginning with Rachel Edwards’ Darling
Books to Look Out for in May 2018: Part Two Read More »
After a difficult winter which seemed never-ending, we were in dire need of a bit of sun and some relaxation so took ourselves off to Spain, flying to Madrid early on Thursday evening. Our second visit to the city started much like the first with a walk around the botanical gardens. Irises were in glorious
Two Days in Madrid, Five Days in Toledo and Just One Book Read More »
There are several juicy looking short story collections on offer in May, three of which I’m including in the first part of this preview kicking off with the excellent Curtis Sittenfeld’s You Think It, I’ll Say It which explores both the ineptitude some people display in reading others and our ability to deceive ourselves, apparently.
Books to Look Out for in May 2018: Part One Read More »
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 other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the others on the
Six Degrees of Separation – from Memoirs of a Geisha to Capital #6Degrees Read More »
David Chariandy’s Brother is the second novel I’ve reviewed this year that I first spotted on Naomi’s Consumed by Ink, hoping that it would buck the British publishing trend of ignoring Canadian gems. The first was Katherena Vermette’s The Break, which lived up to the Margaret Atwood plaudit adorning its cover. Fingers crossed there’ll be more
Brother by David Chariandy: ‘Complicated grief’ Read More »
Chloe Caldwell’s debut first caught my eye on Twitter, not with a storm of insistent shoutyness but a definite buzz. I’ve learned to curb my enthusiasm in the face of unbridled Twitter delight but Women’s synopsis put me in mind of Sylvia Brownrigg’s riveting Pages for You which was followed last year by the slightly
Women by Chloe Caldwell: The anatomy of an affair Read More »
Whereas the first part of April’s paperback preview had its feet firmly planted in the States, this second instalment wanders around Europe beginning in the UK with Elizabeth Day’s The Party. Scholarship boy Martin Gilmour meets Ben Fitzmaurice at Burtonbury School, becoming firm friends with him despite their wildly differing backgrounds. Over the next twenty-five
Paperbacks to Look Out For in April 2018: Part Two Read More »
There’s a puff from Patrick Gale on the jacket of Ruth Figgest’s debut. It’s not one of those slightly gushy quotes with a few too many superlatives to feel sincere. It simply says ‘Ruth Figgest knows how to make a story’ which at first may seem too far the other way but by the time
Magnetism by Ruth Figgest: Families and how to survive them Read More »
I’ve a somewhat chequered history with Donal Ryan’s writing. While I enjoyed The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December I couldn’t work up the ecstatic enthusiasm so many other readers were voicing. Then I read All We Shall Know which made it on to my 2016 books of the year list. It’s early days,
From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan: Love, loss and connection Read More »
A new Peirene is always a treat but I was particularly keen to read Soviet Milk written by a Latvian author born in 1969, twenty years before the fall of the Berlin Wall which resulted in her country’s liberation. I visited the Baltic states several years ago and was struck by each of the three
Soviet Milk by Nora Ikstena (transl. Margita Gailitis): Freedom at last Read More »