Book news, reviews and recommendations
Very little was read (but not reviewed) this month. There was far too much going on in my part of the world, consuming almost all my attention. The first part of the month was taken up with obsessively checking the polls on whether the UK was likely to leave the EU or not. The latter […]
Books Read (But Not Reviewed) in June 2016 Read More »
When I included Moonstone in one of my June previews I was surprised when several people picked up on it, already acquainted with Sjón’s writing either through a previous novel or from songs he’d written with Björk. He’s a talented guy: an award-winning novelist, poet, playwright and librettist. I wish I could say that I
Moonstone by Sjón (transl. Victoria Cribb): The Boy Who Never Was Read More »
I’ll start July’s paperback selection with my favourite of the three I’ve already read. Set in Morocco, Vendela Vida’s The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty takes us on a nail-biting journey wondering what our resourceful protagonist will come up with next. Exhausted after her long sleepless flight and preoccupied by problems at home, she finds herself
Paperbacks to Look Out For in July 2016 Read More »
This second batch of July books kicks off with two novels which have the 2008 global financial crisis and its far-reaching consequences as their backdrop. In Rafael Chirbes’ On the Edge a decomposed corpse is found on the outskirts of Olba, home to Esteban whose factory is a casualty of the crash which has devastated
Books to Look Out For in July 2016: Part 2 Read More »
Regular readers may have gathered by now how I feel about Twitter hype. All too often it leads to disappointment. Having already read and admired After Me Comes the Flood, though, it seemed likely that at least some of the love being poured on Sara Perry’s second novel was entirely genuine, and so it proved
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry: A surefire prize winner Read More »
It started so well: a glorious summer’s evening, sipping chilled white wine and eating our supper on the lawn of our idyllic rented cottage in Longtown, followed by a lovely, warm Sunday walking through wildflower meadows. What could be better? Come Monday morning, those meadows were sodden. The rain continued on and off for the
A (Mostly Wet) Week in Herefordshire and One Book Read More »
Back from a week in the wilds of Herefordshire with a look at what’s ahead in the July publishing schedules. No contest as to which book should begin this post for me. Sarah Moss has left the nineteenth-century setting of Bodies of Light and its sequel Signs for Lost Children, leap-frogging the twentieth century to
Books to Look Out For in July 2016: Part 1 Read More »
Thinly disguised as fiction, Default Setting is Will Green’s autobiographical account of a nervous breakdown. I’ve made it a rule to avoid self-published novels but the pitch for this one was so powerful that I agreed to take a look at it. Default Setting is prefaced with a grim quote from the Mental Health Foundation:
Default Setting by Will Green: Breakdown and how to survive it Read More »
What to read when you have a house full of carpenters and decorators? Even when they’re as polite, careful and quiet as they can be, they’re still disruptive. With the good old British rain pelting down outside there’s not much else to do but retreat to the one room whose windows are not being replaced,
Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss: Adventures in the New York art world Read More »
This is the second 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. I remember selling Howard Norman’s lyrical The Bird Artist when E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News was riding
Blasts from the Past: The Bird Artist by Howard Norman (1994) Read More »
Cynthia D’Arprix Sweeney’s debut is one of those novels that lots of people have been jumping up and down about, eagerly anticipating its publication: I’ve been one of them. Usually that kind of thing makes me put on my sceptical hat but with the promise of a dysfunctional family – a favourite literary trope which
The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney: Families and how to survive them Read More »