Book news, reviews and recommendations
Two of May’s second batch of paperbacks made it on to my 2015 ‘books of the year’ list, my favourite of which was Belinda McKeon’s Tender which I’d hoped to see on the Bailey’s Prize longlist. Catherine and James meet in Dublin in 1997 and almost instantly click. He’s tactile and outgoing, yet tender-hearted, while […]
Paperbacks to Look Out For in May 2016: Part 2 Read More »
I try to avoid TripAdvisor – I’ve spent far too much of my life on it – but a quick visit when checking out somewhere to stay seems almost inevitable these days. Admittedly it can be useful and I’m grateful to the reviewers who include practical information but so often the reviews are rants, often
Hotels of North America by Rick Moody: On the road again Read More »
Lots of paperbacks to look forward to in May, most of which I’ve already read and reviewed including several that made it into my 2015 ‘books of the year’ but the jewel in the crown has to be Kent Haruf’s Our Souls at Night. I’ve long been a champion of Haruf’s beautifully pared back, elegant
Paperbacks to Look Out For in May 2016: Part 1 Read More »
Garth Greenwell’s debut is one of those novels about which there was a good deal of brouhaha long before it was published. As regular readers may have noticed that kind of thing tends to bring out the cynic in me but several of the names praising it to the skies are the kind of people
What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell: A tale of obsession and loneliness Read More »
I think I would have done better to have saved Virginia Reeves’ powerful debut for another time. I read it while flu-ridden and alone for a couple of days, unable to get out there and find some company. All of which is by way of saying that this is not the cheeriest of novels. It
Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves: Paying for your crimes Read More »
This second batch of May goodies ranges far and wide beginning with Suzanne Joinson’s The Photographer’s Wife which takes us to Jerusalem, already riven with political manoeuvring in 1920. The daughter of a British architect with ambitious plans for the city, eleven-year-old Prue spends her time eavesdropping on the conversational machinations of the adults around
Books to Look Out For in May 2016: Part 2 Read More »
I’m not a thriller kind of gal – well only the televised kind, usually with a Scandiland backdrop – but the setting of Annemarie Neary’s debut and the fact that I was still hauling myself out of my flu-induced reading slump before going on holiday made me reach for it. It’s the story of Róisín,
Siren by Annemarie Neary: The past is a foreign country Read More »
We’d booked our weekend in Nice long before I was felled by the flu but the timing couldn’t have been better. Four weeks after the first aches and shivers we were on the plane. It always lifts my spirits to see palm trees after a British winter and this time even more so. Nice turned
Almost three days in Nice and one book Read More »
Pole position for May has to go to Maggie O’Farrell’s This Must be the Place. There was a time when I cheerily dismissed O’Farrell’s novels as chick lit, not for me. Pretty snobby, I know, and pretty stupid, too, as I found out when I was finally persuaded to read After You’d Gone. Still, at
Books to Look Out For in May 2016: Part 1 Read More »
It took some persuasion to get me to read this novel. When it was pitched to me it seemed a) too clever for its own good and b) up an entirely different alley from mine but it’s published by Faber who know what they’re talking about when it comes to literary fiction so I thought
Anatomy of a Soldier by Harry Parker: A life in forty-five objects Read More »
March was a miserable month for me, thanks to the man who sprayed his germs all over the carriage of the Didcot to Oxford train as I was on my way to meet a friend. That horrible hacking cough became all too familiar. What I thought might be a nasty cold turned out to be
Just One Book Read (But Not Reviewed) in March 2016 Read More »