Book news, reviews and recommendations
Romy Ash’s Floundering comes shortlisted for what must be just about every Australian literary prize there is, including the Miles Franklin Award which most of us literary poms have heard of. Aside from Tim Winton and Peter Carey, I don’t read much Australian fiction mainly, I suspect, because not much is published in the UK […]
Floundering by Romy Ash: Leading the way to more Australian writing Read More »
I finished Friday’s review of Helen Dunmore’s superb new novel The Lie with a longstanding gripe of mine: despite her extraordinary talent and versatility – she’s an award-winning poet, a children’s author, and her fiction ranges from profound and thoughtful novels such as The Siege to psychological thrillers such as Burning Bright – I have
#ReadWomen2014: A good idea and why we need it Read More »
When I was asked by the lovely people at We Love This Book to nominate the book I was most looking forward to in 2014 it gave me an excellent excuse to wade through publishers’ catalogues checking out their forthcoming goodies. Tempting as many of them were, the new Helen Dunmore shone out like a
The Lie by Helen Dunmore: Shines out like a beacon Read More »
It was the title that attracted me to Katharine Grant’s Sedition, just one word that promised a great deal particularly as the novel is set in 1794, just five years after the beginning of the French Revolution. In fact political sedition is not the main theme of this bawdy, rollicking tale, although there are hints
Sedition by Katharine Grant: A rollicking tale of love, lust and subversion Read More »
Today is Blue Monday, the day when we’re all at our lowest here in the UK, apparently: the weather is grim, there are several months to get through before spring, the post-Christmas credit card bills are in, and the New Year’s resolutions are probably broken. Traditionally in the book trade it’s the time of year
Reading is Good for you Read More »
A multitude of books will no doubt be published this year commemorating the outbreak of World War I, many of them novels adding to the already substantial body of fiction devoted to it including Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy, Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong, Louisa Young’s My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You and Erich Maria Remarque’s All
Wake by Anna Hope: My first Great War novel of 2014 Read More »
Old women are not a particularly common subject for contemporary fiction. They’ve been memorably portrayed in several books I’ve read by established authors – Helen Dunmore’s Enid in Burning Bright, Liz Jensen’s Gloria in War Crimes for the Home and Lesley Glaister’s Trixie in The Private Parts of Women for instance, and Angela Carter’s sassy
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane: Tiger, tiger burning in the night Read More »
Where would the film industry be without books? And how many screenwriters manage to do justice to the ones they adapt? Tough task, I know, and that’s why I tend to avoid movies based on favourite books – never seen The Kite Runner, for instance. Although it can work the other way – I didn’t
Orlando: Film or book? Read More »
I seem to be spending reading time across the water this week, more by accident than design it has to be said. After Michèle Forbes’ Belfast-set Ghost Moth earlier in the week Donal Ryan’s second novel, The Thing About December, took me south of the border to rural Ireland, my expectations ratcheted up by the
The Thing about December by Donal Ryan: Greed and what it does to the soul Read More »
Only four books into the year and two have already aroused strong feelings. David Vann’s Dirt was not a happy experience nor, I’m sure, was it meant to be given that it’s a study in what happens when parents smother their children in controlling affection, but the final section in which the mother gets her
Ghost Moth by Michèle Forbes: A beautifully expressed debut Read More »
I still keep a hard copy list of all the books I read – old-fashioned, I know, not to mention a wee bit anoraky, but I feel the need to do it. After entering the first book I finished this year I checked what the last decade’s first books had been, partly out of curiosity
The First Book of the Year Read More »