A Life in Books

The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane: Tiger, tiger burning in the night

15 January 2014 / 9 Comments

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 […]

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Orlando: Film or book?

13 January 2014 / 10 Comments

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

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The Thing about December by Donal Ryan: Greed and what it does to the soul

10 January 2014 / 4 Comments

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

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Ghost Moth by Michèle Forbes: A beautifully expressed debut

8 January 2014 / 7 Comments

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

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The First Book of the Year

6 January 2014 / 24 Comments

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

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Books by Charlie Hill: Jasper Fforde meets Black Books

3 January 2014 / 7 Comments

Hard for any committed reader to resist a novel with the title Books, particularly one which comes with a hearty recommendation from Jim Crace. In it Charlie Hill lampoons everyone in the book trade, from publishers to booksellers, literary editors to authors, bloggers (how dare he!) to publicists and adds a swipe at performance artists

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Five Days in Amsterdam and One book

1 January 2014 / 10 Comments

A very happy New Year to you all! I’m afraid this is going to be a ‘what I did on my holidays’ post although there will be a mention of books. H and I took off from Bristol on Christmas Eve for Amsterdam after a slight delay, blissfully unaware of the mayhem that was playing

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Books to Look Out for in April 2014

22 December 2013 / 6 Comments

So the clocks have changed in looking forward land, but it’s probably raining in April in the UK anyway so no reason to leave that sofa and quite a few reasons to stay on it. Earlier this year (that’s 2013) Sarah Moss took me on one of several visits to Iceland with her lovely memoir

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Books to Look Out for in March 2014

20 December 2013 / 6 Comments

Nearly spring here in looking forward land, and the days are getting longer but there’s still plenty to keep you comfortably curled up on the sofa. Let’s start with a bit of non-fiction which will get you out and about if only in your head. The subtitle of cookery writer Mina Holland’s The Edible Atlas

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Reasons to be Cheerful (2): Books to look out for in February 2014

19 December 2013 / 4 Comments

February is often such a dull, grey month here in the UK that you might just as well stay in and read as venture outside. Lots of new novels to keep you entertained if that’s your choice. As with yesterday’s post, a click on the title should take you to Waterstones for a more detailed

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Books to Look Out for in January 2014

18 December 2013 / 6 Comments

I’ve been mulling over a post on books I’m looking forward to in 2014 for a little while, wondering how to organise it. At first it was going to be one post covering the first four months, then two made up of two months each but it seems to be turning into one for each

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