Book news, reviews and recommendations
Lots of tempting books to look out for in May before the summer reading bonanza begins when fewer books tend to snag my attention. I’ll begin with Benjamin Myers’ The Perfect Golden Circle, one I’m keen to read having enjoyed The Offing with its beautiful descriptive writing. Myers’ new novel is set in 1989 when …
Books to Look Out For Out for in May 2022: Part One Read More »
Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list, …
Six Degrees of Separation – Our Wives Under the Sea to Frost in May Read More »
Back from Manchester (more of which next week) with a rare thing for me: a review of a book whose author approached me directly. I tend to politely turn these down to avoid any disappointment or awkwardness but I liked the sound of Clare O’Dea’s Voting Day which follows four women over the course of …
Voting Day by Clare O’Dea: The importance of having your say Read More »
The premise of Heather Marshall’s Looking for Jane immediately appealed to me: the chance discovery of a misdelivered letter sets the woman who stumbled upon it on a quest to find the addressee, long since gone elsewhere. Marshall uses this trigger to explore the underground networks that existed in both Canada and the USA providing …
Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall: ‘There will always be a need’ Read More »
This is the third novel in as many weeks I’ve read with a writing theme although it’s entirely different from either Antoine Wilson’s Mouth to Mouth or Andrew Lipstein’s Last Resort. It was part of my attraction to Lee Cole’s Groundskeeping but if I’m honest it was that lovely jacket that first snagged my attention. …
Groundskeeping by Lee Cole: ‘Isn’t that what fiction is, though? Sanctioned lying?’ Read More »
Just one post for April’s paperbacks which includes five I’ve already read, beginning with a novel by an author who doesn’t get nearly the attention she deserves. Georgina Harding’s Harvest is the third in a loosely linked trilogy about the Ashe family and echoes both The Gun Room and Land of the Living in its …
Paperbacks to Look Out For Out for in April 2022 Read More »
Regular readers won’t be surprised to hear that it was the art theme that first drew me to Charlotte Mendelson’s The Exhibitionist but it’s a background note to the overriding one of dysfunctional families, another favourite, and they don’t come much more dysfunctional than the Hanrahans. Mendelson’s novel follows the family over a weekend when …
The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson: ‘Hearts are elastic, but only up to a point’ Read More »
It was that glorious cover that caught my eye on Twitter, singing out on a dank winter’s day, and when I read its blurb Andrew Lipstein’s debut sounded right up my alley. Last Resort tells the story of how a writer came to both realise his ambition and frustrate it when his first novel is …
Last Resort by Andrew Lipstein: Who owns the story? Read More »
Part one of April’s preview had a nice little Celtic theme running through it whereas part two is much more of a hodge-podge thematically so I’ll start with the three I’ve already read. Five years ago, I reviewed Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach, noting that it was seven years since her Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit from …
Books to Look Out For Out for in April 2022: Part Two Read More »
Spanish poet Elena Medel’s first novel, The Wonders, was much acclaimed in her homeland, winning the prestigious Francisco Umbral Prize. Unsurprisingly, not being a poetry reader, I’d not heard of her but I’m always keen to read novels by poets and this one’s themes of feminism and class made it very appealing so I put …
Oh, I do love an unreliable narrator. Even better when you’re not sure whether they’re reliable or not right up until the end. The premise of Antoine Wilson’s Mouth to Mouth is a clever one: two men, barely acquainted in college, are stranded by a delayed flight – one a struggling writer on his way …
Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson: A man of integrity? Read More »