Book news, reviews and recommendations
It was its Georgian setting that attracted me to Leo Vardiashvili’s debut, Hard by a Great Forest. It’s a part of the world I know little about although what I’ve read suggests that it’s beautiful enough to make me want to visit were it more peaceful. Vardiashvili’s novel takes its narrator back to the country […]
Hard By a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili: ‘They say you can never go home again.’ Read More »
The second batch of February’s paperback treats begins with one of my books of 2023. Sebastian Barry’s Old God’s Time follows a recently retired police officer whose ex-boss has been told to reopen a cold case which involved two priests, both child sex abusers, one of whom had been brutally murdered while the other was
Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2024: Part Two Read More »
I was delighted when I spotted a new Nathan Hill in the schedules having thoroughly enjoyed The Nix which I’d originally spotted it in Dussmann’s, Berlin’s wonderful bookshop and arts centre, but its chunkster proportions meant I couldn’t buy it on holiday. Wellness weighs in at roughly the same length, exploring a multitude of themes
Wellness by Nathan Hill: Soulmates or placebo love Read More »
I read Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend a few years ago and although I enjoyed it I wasn’t nearly as impressed as many readers I trust so approached The Vulnerables with caution, particularly as it came billed as a pandemic novel featuring a parrot. Set during the spring of 2020, Nunez’s novel follows an unnamed writer
The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez: A treat from start to finish Read More »
I’ve read all but one of the novels in the first part February’s paperback preview, not all of them typical of my usual taste in fiction but that’s not such a bad thing. I’m kicking off with one which should have been the perfect read for me but about which I had mixed feelings. I
Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2024: Part One Read More »
I was thrilled when a new Michael Cunningham popped through my letter box. I’ve been a fan since A Home at the End of the World which I loved for its depiction of a different sort of family from the conventional norm. It’s remained my favourite Cunningham novel, still fresh in my mind, which is
Day by Michael Cunningham: Love, loss and carrying on Read More »
Having enjoyed last January’s The Second Cut, Louise Welsh’s sequel to The Cutting Room, I couldn’t resist To the Dogs, particularly after visiting Glasgow in June. Welsh’s new novel follows ambitious vice chancellor Jim Brennan, called away from Beijing when his son is arrested on a drugs charge. He had forgotten how afraid he had
To the Dogs by Louise Welsh: ‘Corruption doesn’t happen in a vacuum’ Read More »
I’m starting off the second instalment of February’s potential goodies with one that’s already earned a place on my books of the year list. Set over a single day in 1982, Laird Hunt’s Float Up, Sing Down tells the stories of fourteen inhabitants of the Indiana town where the eponymous star of his brilliant last
Books to Look Out For in February 2024: Part Two Read More »
I read Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford’s Business as Usual back in the early days of Covid. Wonderfully diverting, it was just what was needed at such an anxious, difficult time. Drawing on Stafford’s experience as an ambulance driver in London’s blitz, Army Without Banners is very different, spanning fifteen months during which London was
I know less about Libya than I feel I should, but I do remember the dramatic events on April 17, 1984, when WPC Yvonne Fletcher was fatally shot at a demonstration outside the Libyan Embassy in London throwing a long, dark shadow over relations between our two countries. Hisham Matar’s My Friends follows three Libyan
My Friends by Hisham Matar: Libya and the pain of exile Read More »
Lots of us in the Northern hemisphere are burying ourselves in books, escaping the grey gloom outside and looking forward to spring. Fortunately, there’s lots on offer to distract us, certainly enough for two helpings of books to look out for, beginning with one I’ve already read. Spanning a decade in Nigeria from 2006, Chukwuebuka
Books to Look Out For Out for in February 2024: Part One Read More »