Book news, reviews and recommendations
Ireland seems to be home to a limitless supply of writing talent. Knowing that an author is Irish is usually enough to persuade me to read their book whatever it’s about. Garrett Carr’s adult fiction debut, The Boy from the Sea, was helped along by a resounding endorsement from Louise Kennedy whose Trespasses was one
I’ve read all the titles in this first instalment of March paperbacks beginning with a 2024 favourite: Carys Davies’s Clear, set in 1843. Having impoverished himself and his wife by resigning his living to become a minister in the newly formed Free Church of Scotland, John Ferguson reluctantly accepts a lucrative offer preparing the clearance
Paperbacks to Look Out For in March 2025: Part One Read More »
I was surprised to spot a novella-length book by Anne Tyler on NetGalley. It seemed like a new departure for her or perhaps I’ve missed a previous piece of her short fiction. Three Days in June follows Gail whose daughter is about to be married, beginning with the wedding rehearsal day. Boundaries; that was his
Three Days in June by Anne Tyler: ‘Another chance to get it right’ Read More »
H and I had been to Stockholm years ago arriving in the middle of an August heatwave so humid we didn’t do nearly as much as we’d planned. Consequently, my memories of the city were hazy, although the image of a young woman taking a piglet for a walk has stayed with me. We thought
Four Days in Stockholm and One Book Read More »
Back from Stockholm (more of which later in the week) with March’s second batch of new fiction. I’ve already read Theft, Abdulrazak Gurnah’s first novel since winning the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. Described as ‘one of the world’s most prominent postcolonial writers’ by the chairman of the Nobel committee, Gurnah continues to explore that
Books to Look Out For in March 2025: Part Two Read More »
By March, spring is firmly in my sights with hopes for fine weather and outdoor get togethers although I know we’re a long way from that. In the meantime, there’s lots of interesting fiction to look out for. Natasha Brown’s debut, Assembly, was one of my books of 2021: a brief, astonishingly powerful novella about
Books to Look Out For in March 2025: 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 – Liaisons Dangereuse to Brighton Rock 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. Canadian poet Marilyn Bowering’s Visible Worlds didn’t get much in the way of UK review coverage as I
Blasts from the Past: Visible Worlds by Marilyn Bowering (1998) Read More »
I can’t resist an art theme as regular readers of this blog will know and Lucy Steeds’s debut The Artist sounded particularly intriguing. Set in Provence over the summer of 1920, it begins and ends in 1957 with a woman gazing at a painting she knows intimately in London’s National Gallery. No. Ettie knows better
The Artist by Lucy Steeds: ‘I want you to see me’ Read More »
February’s second batch of paperbacks includes three I’ve already read, beginning with one likely to be a Marmite book with knobs on for many readers. One of my books of last year, Helen Oyeyemi’s inventive, playful Parasol Against the Axe follows a hen party which has descended on Prague, Oyeyemi’s beloved adopted home and the
Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2025: Part Two Read More »
Despite its door-stopping proportions I couldn’t resist Catherine Airey’s much trumpeted debut with its promise of an involving tale of two Irish sisters, one of whom emigrates to New York to take up an art school scholarship ticking two of my literary boxes. Máire and Rósín’s stories span decades beginning in the 1970s when they’re
Confessions by Catherine Airey: Choose your own adventure Read More »