Book news, reviews and recommendations
Once a year H and I travel north to see our dear friends M, who lives one side of the Pennines, and N, who lives the other. This year we rented a cottage in Holmfirth on the Yorkshire side planning to meet N later in the week, sadly scuppered as he and his partner had […]
Three Days in Yorkshire, One in Shropshire and Most of a Book Read More »
Back from Yorkshire (more of which later in the week) with the last of July’s previews. It’s a long time since I read Dinaw Mengestu’s All Our Names but it’s stayed with me as did Children of the Revolution. His new novel, Someone Like Us, follows Mamush who returns to his Ethiopian community in Washington
Paperbacks to Look Out For in July 2025: Part Two Read More »
This first batch of July paperbacks leans more towards the commercial than usual starting with David Nicholls whose writing always hits the spot for me. His new one, You Are Here, sees Marnie feeling stuck and Michael left by his wife. A determined mutual friend succeeds in getting them to take a walk together which,
Paperbacks to Look Out For in July 2025: Part One Read More »
I couldn’t resist Thirst Trap given how many debuts from young Irish women have hit the spot for me in recent years. Gráinne O’Hare’s novel is about three friends on the cusp of thirty living in the same house they shared with a fourth, killed in a car accident a year before. ‘Lidl,’ Cate said, almost
Thirst Trap by Gráinne O’Hare: Arrested development Read More »
This month’s snapshot includes a novel I’ve almost decided to give up, a short story collection from an acclaimed Irish author which has started well and a memoir that might make you think twice about eating in Parisian restaurants. The novel I’m reading is an unsolicited copy of Juhea Kim’s City of Night Birds sent
A Snapshot of My Reading #5 Read More »
I’ve read two from this second selection of July’s new fiction beginning with one I’d not expected to enjoy as much as I did. Opening in the early 2000s, Alexander Starritt’s Drayton and Mackenzie follows James Drayton and Roland Mackenzie who met briefly at Oxford. Driven and intensely competitive, even with himself, James is the
Books to Look Out For in July 2025: Part Two 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 others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list,
Six Degrees of Separation – All Fours to Lessons in Chemistry Read More »
This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could. This is the second novel by Tim Murphy I’ve featured in this series. I’m not sure I’ve done
Blasts from the Past: Correspondents by Tim Murphy (2019) Read More »
Lee Cole’s Groundskeeping was one of my books of the year back in 2022 raising my expectations for his second. Fulfillment sees two half-brothers returning to Kentucky, one with his hopes dashed and in debt, the other married and apparently successful, teaching for a term at a local university. For anyone discomfited by that extra
Fulfillment by Lee Cole: ‘Despair and Late Capitalism’ or ‘The Hero’s Journey’ Read More »
This first batch of new fiction is full of books I’m not entirely sure about but look worth a try, beginning with Kate Sawyer’s Getting Away which is aimed squarely at the summer reading market, not something I tend to be a part of, but it has an attractive premise. The Smith family visit the
Books to Look Out For in July 2025: Part One Read More »
I was delighted when Sarah Moss’s Ripeness popped through my letter box. It’s the eighth book by her I’ve reviewed on this blog, starting way back in 2013 with her Icelandic memoir, Names for the Sea. This new one sees a woman in her seventies remembering the months she spent in Italy as a seventeen-year-old
Ripeness by Sarah Moss: ‘Life has no form, you don’t get to choose.’ Read More »