Book news, reviews and recommendations
This first, disappointingly thin, instalment of July paperbacks begins with one I’ve already read. C. Pam Zhang’s Land of Milk and Honey is a slice of dystopian fiction in which a chef recalls her year in an Italian mountain top restaurant sufficiently elevated to lift it above the smog that enveloped the world. While everyone
Paperbacks to Look Out For in July 2024: Part One Read More »
I’ve been reading Anna Quindlen’s quietly perceptive novels for years, wondering if she might get the Elizabeth Strout style recognition she deserves here in the UK. It didn’t happen with either Still Life with Breadcrumbs or Alternate Side but perhaps it will with After Annie which spans the year after Annie Brown’s death, following her
After Annie by Anna Quindlen: ‘There’s no right or wrong way to grieve’ Read More »
I liked the premise of Orla Mackey’s Mouthing. It put me in mind of Robert Seethaler’s The Field in which the dead remember their village, filled with all the gossip, machinations and scandalmongering you might expect from such a small community. Mackey’s debut tells the story of Ballygowan, tucked away in rural Ireland, over several
Mouthing by Orla Mackey: ‘Night night now. Tomorrow will be lovely’ Read More »
This second instalment of July’s fiction is a very mixed bag beginning with the second novel from an author whose debut couldn’t be more different. As the title suggests Paddy Crewe’s True Love is a love story but far from what you might call a romance. Keely and Finn are two damaged young people who
Books to Look Out For in July 2024: Part Two Read More »
H and I enjoyed our 2022 stay in The Hague so much we wanted to explore more of the Netherlands but after spending more hours of my life than I care to think about looking for somewhere as nice as Residenz Stadslogement, decided to return and use it as a base again. The first two
Eight Days in the Netherlands and One Book Read More »
July’s publishing schedules are stuffed full of summer reading for those seeking beach reads and the like. There are several that might fit that category in this first batch, beginning with one I’m very keen to read. I loved Claire Lombardo’s wonderfully entertaining The Most Fun We Ever Had so am looking forward to Same
Books to Look Out For in July 2024: 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 – Butter to Butterflies in November 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. I’m ashamed to say that I read far less fiction in translation back in 2000 when I first
Migration is a theme I’m often drawn to, fascinated by the way in which people adapt and change, influencing their new culture and country even when it’s made clear they’re far from welcome. Or Rosenboim’s beautifully jacketed Air and Love promised an exploration of her family’s peripatetic history through their food, something I’m also keen
Air and Love by Or Rosenboim: ‘Where are you really from?’ Read More »
June’s turned out to be an excellent month for paperback goodies: two favourites from last year in the first instalment, followed by two in this one which only failed to make it on to my books of the year list for fear of trying readers’ patience at its length. Jenny Mustard’s Okay Days follows Sam
Paperbacks to Look Out For in June 2024: Part Two Read More »
Nanae Aoyama’s A Perfect Day to Be Alone is already a bestseller in several European countries, translated into German, French and Italian before Jesse Kirkwood’s English version. Spanning a year in which twenty-year-old Chizu lives with an elderly distant relative, it’s a quiet coming-of-age story. It turned out that when you put three people with