Book news, reviews and recommendations
I’m a huge Ann Patchett fan and when I spotted her memoir in Bloomsbury’s catalogue it seemed the next best thing to a new novel. When it arrived I was a little disappointed as it turns out to be a collection of essays rather than continuous prose but after gobbling them all down I’ve come […]
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett: Which is very much more than that Read More »
It’s been some time since I’ve read a Peter Ackroyd novel – Hawksmoor was wonderful and I enjoyed Chatterton but somehow I couldn’t get on with his later fiction – however something about Three Brothers appealed so I thought I’d try again. Opening in the 1950s it tells the story of the Hanways who live
Three Brothers by Peter Ackroyd: Only connect Read More »
Probably because it was published just before Halloween and because I’d had the living daylights scared out of me three times by The Woman In Black – once by the book, secondly by a TV adaptation many years ago and then again at the theatre by which time you’d think I knew what to expect
Black Sheep by Susan Hill: A moral tale Read More »
I got together with R and S, two ex-Waterstone’s friends, in Birmingham yesterday, partly for a good old chat but our main destination was Birmingham’s spanking new library which I’d been wanting to visit since it opened back in September. We had a gorgeous day for it – bright sunshine bouncing off the tiered, shiny
The Library of Birmingham: A box of delights Read More »
I’ve done my best to avoid all the reviews and brouhaha around The Goldfinch justifiable though it is – it’s been a decade since The Little Friend and two since The Secret History had us all entranced – but I wanted to come to it fresh. As a result I missed the Kirsty Wark interview,
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: ‘Density and speed’ – it’s all you want in a novel’ Read More »
When I was a bookseller the phrase ‘gift edition’ was enough to bring me out in a rash. It usually meant a non-book, dressed up in frills and spangles, meant to catch the eye at the till point in the way that sweeties do in the supermarket. They also served as desperation presents on Christmas
All My Friends Are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman: A quirky little classic Read More »
Back in the summer we were invited to an afternoon Pimms party by a couple of our neighbours. Lovely idea for what was turning out to be sunny summer but sadly when the day came it was the wettest Saturday afternoon in August. Being British, though, we didn’t let a bit of rain get in
Petite Mort by Beatrice Hitchman and a wet afternoon Pimms party Read More »
There’s been a lot of talk about long books over the past ten days: the Man Booker-winning The Luminaries weighs in at 832 pages and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, for which many of us have been waiting for a decade, stretches to 784 pages. My heart always sinks a little when a big book comes
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert: Not one unnecessary page Read More »
The Novel Cure is an absolute treat for bibliophiles, guaranteed to bring a smile to your face. Compiled by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin who set up what must be the first bibliotherapy practise in 2008, it’s a set of literary prescriptions for ailments, worries and all that life throws at us, from coping with
The Novel Cure by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin: Good for whatever ails you Read More »
With its puff from J. Courtney Sullivan, Ann Leary’s The Good House looked a promising choice for my cold-befuddled brain – absorbing but relatively unchallenging. Set in the kind of small New England seaside town where families have lived for so long that there are coves named after them, it’s narrated by Hildy Good, successful
The Good House by Ann Leary: Secrets and lies Read More »
Forgive me if this review is not the best you’ve ever read here: I’m sliding down the same slippery slope H did last weekend and my head is full of cotton wool but having just finished Diane Setterfield’s Bellman & Black I need to get my thoughts down before my brain is entirely sodden. It
Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield: A right gothic tale Read More »