Book news, reviews and recommendations
I had no intention of reading a pandemic novel having had enough of it in real life then Sarah Moss’ The Fell was announced, a sweet surprise as Summerwater was published less than eighteen months ago. Just as Summerwater spans a single day in the lives of a group of holidaymakers in Scotland, The Fell …
The Fell by Sarah Moss: ‘Life, then, to be lived, somehow’ 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. Lesley Glaister was one of those writers I kept expecting to break through from relative obscurity and land …
Blasts from the Past: Sheer Blue Bliss by Lesley Glaister (1999) 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 – From What Are You Going Through to Notes from a Small Island Read More »
Lars Saabye Christensen’s new novel is the second instalment of his Echoes of the City trilogy. The first, which gives the series its name, opened in 1947 telling the story of post-war Oslo through the Kristoffersen family. Spanning just over a year, Friendship picks up their story in 1956 with Maj still treasurer of the …
I suspect many of you will have heard of Dan Rhodes’ new novel by now thanks to David Sexton’s review in the Sunday Times a few weeks ago. Set at a literary festival held in the village of Green Bottom, Sour Grapes takes a hefty swipe at the publishing world in ways which might sound …
Sour Grapes by Dan Rhodes: Getting things off your chest Read More »
This is the third post in this series I’ve devoted to novellas. It seemed appropriate to run it today given that it’s Novella November, set up by Cathy at 746Books and now co-hosted by Bookish Beck. The five I’ve chosen are particularly notable for their use of language, sometimes lyrical, sometimes understated. Here then are …
It was its Swedish setting that attracted me to Alex Schulman’s The Survivors which came my way at a time when I was remembering holidays past, including one taken on the Gothenburg archipelago many years ago. It’s about a family who holiday every year at the same isolated lakeside cottage until, one summer, a dramatic …
My sense of time has been off during the pandemic: sometimes an event seems as if it was just the other day, others years ago, both assumptions often prove to be wrong. Perhaps that’s why I was surprised to spot a new Elizabeth Strout in the publishing schedules, convinced that Olive, Again was only published …
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout: ‘We are all mysteries, is what I mean’ Read More »
Hospital dramas abound on TV – Holby City, Gray’s Anatomy, ER, House to name but a few. Not as ubiquitous as crime but oddly it’s rarely a theme in fiction. This post isn’t all about hospitals but it does explore something which affects every one of us, not least over the long pandemic. Here, then, …
Back in 2017 I reviewed Domenico Starnone’s Ties, remarking on its explosive opening letters from a furious wife to her unfaithful husband. It was Jhumpa Lahiri’s translation that attracted me to the novel but it was my enjoyment of it that made me put my hand up for Trust. As Lahiri notes in her afterword, …
Trust by Domenico Starnone (transl. Jhumpa Lahiri): A life in three parts Read More »
As my birthday appeared on the horizon, I could feel myself giving into the lure of the New Forest again and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about holidays it’s not to try to replicate them so I booked a few days in London in an aparthotel around the corner from Tate Modern. Once settled …