Book news, reviews and recommendations
I’ve read both Sarah Moss’s account of her year in Iceland, Names for the Sea, and her first novel, Cold Earth, but haven’t yet got around to Night Waking in which one of the characters from Bodies of Light first makes her appearance, albeit in a collection of letters found two hundred years after her […]
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss: The nineteenth-century woman’s lot Read More »
It’s that time of the month when I begin to look forward to what’s on offer a little further down the line. Not so greedy this month – May really was a feast for gluttons – but there are some very tempting looking titles in the early summer publishing schedules here in the UK. Harriet
Books to Look Out for in June 2014 Read More »
I like a nice bit of gothic now and again. Diane Setterfield’s beautifully polished Bellman & Black was the last gothic novel I read, a subtle tale of fulfilled ambition that comes at a terrible price. The Quick is firmly in vampire territory which seems to have been done to death (sorry) over the past few
The Quick by Lauren Owen: A pleasingly chilling tale Read More »
I’ve spent two Christmases in Berlin – one in the old East in the shadow of the TV tower, the other just inside the old West close to Checkpoint Charlie, now a tourist attraction complete with sentry box. You can’t get away from history in this city, although it’s very much more about the Wall
Red Love by Maxim Leo: Life behind the Berlin Wall Read More »
I met up with a friend in Salisbury last week, a city of which I’m very fond although it feels more like a town to me. It’s a lovely train journey from Bath but the countryside was swathed in murk and so a book was needed, one that wasn’t too demanding given that there’s no
Home Fires by Elizabeth Day and an outing to Salisbury Read More »
Adolf Hitler wakes up with a dreadful headache. He’s a little bemused to find himself lying in what seems to be a wasteland. He picks himself up and makes his way to a news kiosk where he’s astonished to find that it’s August 30th 2011. He’s at a loss to know what’s happened but the
After the pyrotechnics of Siri Hustvedt’s new novel last week I felt in need of something a little less taxing, something engaging but not too challenging. Dea Brøvig’s The Last Boat Home looked a likely candidate. It’s a first novel set in a tiny community on the Norwegian coast. Two narrative strands alternate between the
The Last Boat Home by Dea Brøvig: Dark secrets in ’70s Norway Read More »
Where to start with Siri Hustvedt’s new novel? Perhaps with a warning that it’s not an easy read. If it’s good old linear narrative you’re after best look elsewhere. The Blazing World is made up of a collection of documents relating to Harriet Burden – interviews; written statements from her friend, her lover and her
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt: An astonishing piece of work Read More »
This post was prompted by my finishing Kathleen Jamie’s Findings which seems to me to be a perfect example of what I’ve been calling in my head the ‘new nature writing’. Jamie is an acclaimed poet and it shows in her wonderfully pared back descriptions of tracking the elusive corncrake on the island of Coll,
Findings by Kathleen Jamie: The new nature writing Read More »
Dept. of Speculation is Jenny Offill’s second novel. Her first, Last Things, was published way back in 1999, so long ago that I confess I have no memory of it except that I know that it must have been good as it’s still on my shelves having survived the series of charity shop culls over
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill: A long time coming but well worth the wait Read More »
This may seem an unusual post from me but I enjoy eating almost as much as I enjoy reading and would do a lot more of it were I not in fear of an exploding waistline. Travel comes a close third which makes Mina Holland’s culinary atlas an attractive prospect, all the more so thanks
The Edible Atlas by Mina Holland: A tasty little post which involves Jaffa cakes Read More »