Book news, reviews and recommendations
When I’m feeling particularly depressed about the state of the world, I remind myself that equal marriage has been enshrined in law for over a decade here in the UK and has been legalised in many other countries. Set in a small Welsh village in the late 1980s, not so very long ago, Anthony Shapland’s […]
A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland: A love story Read More »
I’m beginning with the only one I’ve read from this second instalment of April paperbacks. Narrated by the self-deprecating Rocky, Catherine Newman’s Sandwich spans a week in the holiday let she and her husband have rented for almost twenty years. They and their grown-up children cram themselves into the tiny cottage, joined later by Rocky’s
Paperbacks to Look Out For in April 2025: Part Two Read More »
Theft is Abdulrazak Gurnah’s first novel since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. Described as ‘one of the world’s most prominent postcolonial writers’ by the chairman of the Nobel committee, he continues to explore that theme through three young people in 1990s Zanzibar, his native country, whose lives become closely intertwined. He would
Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah: A multi-layered exploration of postcolonialism Read More »
The blurb for Paul McVeigh’s short story collection, I Hear You, put me in mind a little of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Roman Stories with its structure of a few standalone pieces plus ten stories linked to a location, in McVeigh’s case The Circus, a renovated club where a talent contest is to be held. The collection
I Hear You by Paul McVeigh: Belfast tales Read More »
I’m kicking off April’s paperback preview with two favourites from last year beginning with Sarah Leipciger’s Moon Road, the story of a missing girl and her parents, now divorced, who receive news decades after she disappeared. Yannick persuades Kathleen to travel to Vancouver, where Una had been living, to talk to the police. Although we
Paperbacks to Look Out For in April 2025: Part One Read More »
I spotted Madeleine Watts’s Elegy, Southwest on social media thanks to a passionately enthusiastic post from its editor. The premise of a road novel set in the desert of the American Southwest, a landscape which I’ve visited several times and loved, made me put up my hand immediately. Watts’s novel follows Eloise and Lewis over
Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts: ‘Our time, perhaps, is shorter than we think’ Read More »
I posted the first snapshot of my reading on New Year’s Day, expecting to follow it with another in February which somehow didn’t come off thanks to my gallivanting to London and Stockholm. This month I’m staying put with enough time on my hands to post the second. The novel I’m reading is Your Absence
A Snapshot of My Reading #2 Read More »
There’s a coming-of-age theme running through the first few titles in April’s second fiction preview beginning with Seán Hewitt’s Open, Heaven which sees a deep bond form between two teenage boys. James is eager to begin his life away from the expectations of his family and the small village in which he lives. Luke has
Books to Look Out For in April 2025: Part Two Read More »
Jessica Soffer’s This Is a Love Story is an exploration of a long marriage between an artist and a writer, played out against a New York City background. Knowing that she’s dying, Jane tells Abe she wants to remember their many decades together, the good times and the bad, many spent in their brownstone apartment
This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer: ‘Don’t go’ Read More »
Douglas Bruton’s With or Without Angels and Hope Never Knew Horizon both made it on to my books of the year list. He writes about art, creativity and love in an original, engagingly imaginative way. Even before reading Woman in Blue I was pretty sure it would be landing alongside this year’s favourites. As many
Woman in Blue by Douglas Bruton: ‘He loves me, he loves me not’ Read More »
I’ve read two books from the first April preview instalment beginning with Solvej Balle’s International Booker Prize longlisted On The Calculation of Volume which is structured as a diary written by Tara, briefly in Paris for the antiquarian bookshop she runs with her husband. Nothing seems amiss until the following day begins to repeat itself.
Books to Look Out For in April 2025: Part One Read More »