Book news, reviews and recommendations
I was delighted to spot a new Jenny Erpenbeck on the horizon, putting up my hand as soon as I was offered a proof of Kairos. Erpenbeck’s books offer much food for thought on the events that have shaped modern Germany. Opening in 1986, her new novel charts an affair between Hans, a successful writer […]
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (transl. Michael Hofmann): ‘The god of fortunate moments’ Read More »
Slim paperback pickings for July, as is often the case, with just one preview post which includes several books I’ve already read and enjoyed beginning with one with a particular appeal for political obsessives like me. Opening on the day of the 2008 American presidential election, A. M. Homes’ The Unfolding ends on Obama’s first
Paperbacks to Look Out For in July 2023 Read More »
It took me some time to get around to reading Brandon Taylor’s Real Life thanks to the hype surrounding it when it was first published but I enjoyed it when I did, certainly enough to read The Late Americans whose premise also appealed. Reading like a series of intricately linked short stories, Taylor’s thought-provoking novel
The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor: Finding your way in the world Read More »
The premise of Caroline O’Donoghue’s The Rachel Incident reminded me of Belinda McKeon’s Tender which I loved but was stunned to find I’d reviewed back in 2015. The novels turned out to have little in common besides being written by Irish women about the relationship between a young straight woman and her gay male friend.
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue: Paging Netflix Read More »
This second instalment of July’s new fiction has more chunksters than usual beginning with one I wasn’t sure I’d read. Despite feeling somewhat disappointed by Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes I put my hand up for The Half Moon mostly because of that cover. Set in a small New York town, it follows the
Books to Look Out For Out for in July 2023: Part Two Read More »
No amount of obsessive weather app checking eased my packing anxiety before heading north. Last year’s Manchester trip had everything from snow to what felt like a mini heatwave, something Glasgow was apparently experiencing while Leeds, our first stop, looked distinctly chilly. We were staying in the city’s legal district very close to the civic
Three Days in Leeds, Five Days in Glasgow and One Book Read More »
Back from the not so chilly north (more of that on Friday) with a novel I snapped up as soon as I spotted it on NetGalley. I’ve been a fan of Daniela Krien’s understated writing since I read Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything back in 2015. Not such a lengthy gap between Love in
The Fire by Daniela Krien (Transl. Jamie Bulloch): Discovering who you are Read More »
July’s the month when holiday reading kicks in with a vengeance in the publishing schedules. There’s some of that in the second part of my July preview but on the whole my taste for what to read when away doesn’t tend to chime with publishers’ suggestions. That said I’m kicking off with a title which
Books to Look Out For in July 2023: 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 – Friendaholic to March 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 into as many hands as I could. Barry Unsworth’s Morality Play is set in the late fourteenth century, a time of calamitous upheaval. The country
Blasts from the Past: Morality Play by Barry Unsworth (1995) Read More »
It was its structure that attracted me to Ore Agbaje-Williams’ debut. Set over one day, The Three of Us is told from three points of view: a wife, a husband and the best friend who has known the wife since school. Lots of room there for unreliable narrators and tense relationship dynamics. She was the