Book news, reviews and recommendations
It was partly the setting that attracted me to Sarah Perry’s first novel – I love Norfolk’s huge sky and lovely coastline – but the blurb was enticing, too, and I don’t say that very often. A middle-aged man exhausted by the seemingly endless heat wave that’s hit London shuts up shop and heads off […]
Xiaolu Guo’s ambitious new novel is neither easy to read nor to write about. It’s a jigsaw puzzle of a love story, chock-full of well-aimed barbs fired at Chinese politics past and present, and it takes some getting into but don’t let that put you off – it’s well worth the effort, a book that
I am China by Xiaolu Guo: A love story in fragments Read More »
This is a book I would have read anyway – it’s a book about books after all – but many years ago I worked very briefly with Andy Miller at Waterstones head office, when it was in full possession of an apostrophe, so there’s an added interest for me. Having spotted my blog, Andy remembered
The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller: How one man got his mojo back Read More »
The immigrant experience is a rich theme for fiction, one which offers many of us a glimpse into a world that we will never know and, I would like to think, fosters a level of empathy and tolerance apparently unknown to many tabloid editors with their pernicious headlines. Cristina Henríquez’s brilliantly named The Book of
I’ve never been the girly type and would’ve been first in the booksellers’ queue muttering did we really need another book about the Kennedys – although mercifully with no mention of Marilyn Monroe – so my attraction to The Pink Suit may seem a little odd but I’d enjoyed Nicole Mary Kelby’s White Truffles in
The Pink Suit by Nicole Mary Kelby: A love affair with style Read More »
September is one of those months when the big guns are wheeled out to get those Christmas juices flowing. A couple of them will appear later on in this post but I’d like to start with a few novels that are less likely to be displayed at the front of your local bookshop or on
Books to Look Out for in September 2014 Read More »
A few years ago Random House began publishing novellas under the Hammer imprint. They’re all either horror or ghost stories – hardly a surprise given the connotations of the name – but what is surprising are some of the authors they’ve commissioned to write for them. I’ve already read Helen Dunmore’s The Greatcoat, a subtle,
Touched by Joanna Briscoe: A Touch of the Horrors Read More »
There’s always a niggling worry that a second novel won’t quite live up to a debut as impressive as Harriet Lane’s chilling Alys, Always but I’m pleased to say that Her doesn’t disappoint. It’s a one-sitting, riveting read: a dual narrative as cleverly controlled as a Maggie O’Farrell – queen of that particular form –
Her by Harriet Lane: A very fine psychological thriller Read More »
No matter how much you love your home it’s hard coming back from holiday – there’s the laundry mountain to contend with, the overflowing email inbox to wade through and the cold shoulder treatment from a cat grown accustomed to the constant adulation of an adoring nine-year-old. All of this was made very much easier
Very Inspiring Blogger Award Read More »
I’d love to board a train at my local station and travel all the way to the Dolomites by rail but that would entail a good deal of time, organisation and probably money so we did the next best thing and flew from our local airport to Munich where we spent our first evening having
Walking in the Dolomites, the pleasures of the pudding buffet and a few books Read More »
Reading fiction in translation offers us a glimpse into different worlds, cultures that we can never experience ourselves no matter how sophisticated modern travel has become. That’s exactly what Elvira Dones’s Sworn Virgin does, taking us to the mountains of Northern Albania where the clan system is deeply embedded, blood feuds confine families to their
Sworn Virgin by Elivira Dones (transl. Clarissa Botsford) Read More »