Book news, reviews and recommendations
That subtitle sums up the structure of Ben Shattuck’s beautifully constructed The History of Sound comprising twelve stories, each with a companion piece. That alone would have made me want to read it but the promise of a film adaptation starring Paul Mescal was an added spur; shallow as that might seem, he’s a such […]
December’s always dull month in the publishing calendar if you enjoy the kind of fiction I do. This year’s offerings seem particularly thin, just two, one of which I’ve already read. Gu Byeong-Mo’s Your Neighbour’s Table is set in a government funded apartment building; a pilot project aimed at addressing South Korea’s ever-dwindling birth rate.
Books to Look Out For in December 2024 Read More »
Andrew Miller occasionally sets his books in the present but excels at historical fiction whether that be the eighteenth century of my favourite Ingenious Pain or 1962/3, when Britain was in the grips of a brutal cold snap, in his new novel. The Land in Winter follows two very different couples, incomers to the Somerset
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller: A distinctly chilly tale Read More »
Five years ago, I reviewed Niall Williams’s This is Happiness which I very much enjoyed despite his somewhat florid writing style, very different from my preferred pared-back prose. A pleasing coming-of-age story, Williams’s novel was set in the rain-soaked coastal community of Faha, on the cusp of entering the modern world as the village welcomes
Time of the Child by Niall Williams: A Christmas tale Read More »
Perhaps the most famous recent fictionalisation of a life is Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell but I’ve chosen some less well known examples for this post. Below are five novels based on real lives, all with links to reviews on this blog, beginning with one by a writer who excels at this form of fiction. I’ve
Five Fictionalisations of Real Lives I’ve Read 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 – Intermezzo to Good Day? Read More »
This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could. The son of a forensic psychiatrist, Patrick McGrath grew up near Broadmoor, the high security mental hospital for
Blasts from the Past: Port Mungo by Patrick McGrath (2004) Read More »
I’d not come across Malachy Tallack before his second novel, That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz, popped up on NetGalley. Tallack’s a singer-songwriter as well as an established writer of books about his beloved Shetland. The blurb promised a story about a man who has spent almost his entire life in one place who finds unexpected friendship
That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack: Never too late to change Read More »
Lean pickings for November’s paperback preview although it begins with a novel heading for my books of 2024 list. Set in early 2020, Sigrid Nunez’s witty, erudite, wonderfully discursive The Vulnerables follows an unnamed writer as she takes up residence in a palatial apartment to care for a parrot whose owner has been stranded during
Paperbacks to Look Out For in November 2024 Read More »
We’d had such a lovely time when we last visited Portugal, pre-pandemic, I suggested a Portuguese railway jaunt to H. Our plan was less ambitious than our Central European holidays with just three stops and a flight either end, the first one to Porto. We’d visited the city back in September 2001, a strange time
Fourteen Days in Portugal and Two Books Read More »
November’s the month when publishers line up their big titles ready for Christmas, two of which I’ve included here, both from old favourites of mine, beginning with the one I’ve already read. Jonathan Coe’s The Proof of My Innocence opens in early September 2022 against the backdrop of Liz Truss’s brief disastrous premiership. Newly graduated,
Books to Look Out For in November 2024 Read More »