Book news, reviews and recommendations
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 »
It’s time for a new issue of Shiny New Books, packed with features, competitions, book news and reviews. With lots of contributions from a wide variety of bloggers and authors, it’s well worth a look and if you haven’t come across it yet I suggest you get yourself on over there. My own contribution to
Journeyman by Marc Bojanowski and a new issue of Shiny New Books Read More »
I seem to be adding one each month to my books read (but not reviewed) tally after March’s miserable single score. May saw three excellent novels added to the list, each very different from the other, starting with one that I wrote a post about well over a year ago, prompted by a friend’s experience
Books Read (But Not Reviewed) in May 2016 Read More »
Well, this is a turn up for the books (sorry) – I seem to have already read all but one of the paperbacks published this June that I’m interested in. I’ll kick off with one of the few successes from my Baileys Prize wish list back in February: Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory which
Paperbacks to Look Out For in June 2016 Read More »
Back in 2012, I was sent a copy of Tim Winton’s Land’s Edge: A Coastal Memoir to read for a magazine I was working on. In it Winton writes about his passion for his country’s coastline, recalling childhood beach holidays then learning to surf as a lonely adolescent. I’d read and enjoyed Winton’s fiction but
Island Home by Tim Winton: A landscape memoir Read More »