Book news, reviews and recommendations
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 »
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
Books by Charlie Hill: Jasper Fforde meets Black Books Read More »
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
Five Days in Amsterdam and One book Read More »
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
Books to Look Out for in April 2014 Read More »
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
Books to Look Out for in March 2014 Read More »
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
Reasons to be Cheerful (2): Books to look out for in February 2014 Read More »
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
Books to Look Out for in January 2014 Read More »
The jacket of Merethe Lindstrom’s beautifully written, quietly devastating novel suits it perfectly: the door of an almost empty room opens onto another room, opening onto another, all in varying shades of grey. It’s narrated by Eva and begins with an intruder, a young man who asks to use her phone when she is at
Back in 2009, after a long and illustrious career as a novelist, Margaret Drabble called time on writing fiction, following her announcement with the publication of The Pattern in the Carpet, a kind of memoir through jigsaws that I have yet to read but which I’m told is very good. Surprisingly, then, this year saw
The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble: A second swansong? Read More »
This is my fourth literary trip to Iceland this year – Hannah Kent’s impressive debut Burial Rites, Sarah Moss’s Names for the Sea and Michel Rostain’s novel/memoir The Son all took me there in one way or another and now Auđur Ava Ólafsdóttir’s quirky novel Butterflies in November. It opens with the killing of a