Book news, reviews and recommendations
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 one’s a surprising one for me. It has elements of the fantastical which is usually a literary […]
Blasts from the Past: The Vintner’s Luck by Elizabeth Knox (1999) Read More »
Regular readers of this blog will know I’m a fervent Remainer but I’m not a blindly naïve one. The EU is an institution ripe for reform but I’ve long believed that international issues are best tackled together. We Europeans failed dismally, however, to find a humane solution to the 2015 refugee crisis, dumping responsibility on
Go Went Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck (transl. Susan Bernofsky): Opening the doors Read More »
Peirene’s novellas come with a brief foreword from Meike Ziervogel, a short personal comment explaining why this particular book caught her eye. The one prefacing Kerstin Hensel’s Dance by the Canal ends ‘This book will make you think’. I’ve yet to read anything published by Peirene which hasn’t done that. Hensel’s book is the story
Dance by the Canal by Kerstin Hensel (transl. Jen Calleja): Down but not out Read More »
There’s a nicely varied bunch of paperbacks in the offing for October. I’ll start off with a book that’s been popular in my neck of the Twitter woods for quite some months. ‘What if I don’t want to hold your baby? – Can I date you without ever hearing about your divorce? – What can
Paperbacks to Look Out for in October 2017 Read More »
I’ve enjoyed several of Patrick McGrath’s novels, some of them with a distinctly Gothic flavour. Those of you who’ve read Asylum will know what I mean. For some reason, I’d got it into my head that The Wardrobe Mistress inhabited similar territory which turns out to be not entirely the case. Set against the background
The Wardrobe Mistress by Patrick McGrath: A well turned out chiller Read More »
There are three titles competing for top of my October wish list. Hard to choose which to grab first so I’m plumping for the one I’ve been waiting for the longest: Jane Harris’ Sugar Money. It’s been eight years since Gillespie and I was published, a novel which features a superbly unreliable narrator, and eleven
Books to Look Out for in October 2017 Read More »
If you spend any time in the literary corners of Twitter you will have heard of Gabriel Tallent’s debut already. Lots of readers fervently singing its praises at every turn. I knew from the blurb that it would be a tough read but had no conception of just how gut-wrenchingly nerve-wracking. I nearly gave it
My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent: Not for the faint-hearted Read More »
It’s been three years since Kamila Shamsie’s last novel, A God in Every Stone, a book I confidently expected to appear on the following year’s Baileys longlist. This year’s Man Booker judges have followed suit, longlisting Home Fire which I’m sure would have appeared on my own wishlist had I read it in time. It’s
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie: Antigone redux 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 into as many hands as I could. The People’s Act of Love is one of those rare things: a novel that came to me via
Blasts from the Past: The People’s Act of Love by James Meek (2005) 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 Wild Swans to The Invisible Woman #6Degrees Read More »
You probably know Nicole Krauss’ name already. The History of Love, published back in 2004, was a bestseller here in the UK as well as in her native US, thanks in part to its inclusion in the Richard & Judy book club selection. Lots of literary types tended to sneer at R&J but their choices
Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss: Lost in the desert with Kafka Read More »