A Life in Books

Cover image for Blurb Your Enthusiasm by Louise Willder

Blurb Your Enthusiasm: The A-Z of Literary Persuasion by Louise Willder: ‘Words matter’

7 September 2022 / 25 Comments

I couldn’t resist Louise Willder’s Blurb Your Enthusiasm when it popped up on NetGalley many months ahead of publication. That wordplay, of course, only added to the attraction. Willder’s book is all about those 100 or so words, so important in persuading us whether to read a book or not. She should know, she’s been […]

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Ciover image for Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

Books to Look Out For in October 2022

5 September 2022 / 34 Comments

October’s a little light on eye-catching titles for me although for the second year running we’re being treated to a new Elizabeth Strout featuring Lucy Barton which came as a surprise. Lucy by the Sea sees her leaving New York City for lockdown life in Maine with the ex-husband she was reunited with in last

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Six Degrees of Separation – Bridget Jones’s Diary to The Devils of Loudun

3 September 2022 / 26 Comments

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,

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Fools by Joan Silber: More please (reprised)!

2 September 2022 / 15 Comments

I’m an enthusiastic fan of Joan Silber’s fiction having loved both Improvement and Secrets of Happiness and was delighted to find that not one but two of her backlisted books were to be published here in the UK. Both come billed as linked short stories, my favourite kind of collection. I’ve plumped to review Fools

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Cover image for Instructions for the Working Day by Joanna Campbell

Instructions for the Working Day by Joanna Campbell: The high cost of freedom

31 August 2022 / 15 Comments

Two things attracted me to Joanna Campbell’s Instructions for the Working Day: firstly, its setting in the old East Germany which I’ve visited a few times; secondly, Claire Fuller’s puff extolling its virtues. Set in a dilapidated village, Campbell’s novel follows Neil Fischer who has inherited this settlement from his father whose childhood home it

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Cover image for Talking to the dead by Helen Dunmore

Five Novels I’ve Read by Poets

29 August 2022 / 38 Comments

I often read for the writing as much as for storytelling and although I rarely read poetry, I’ve found that novels by poets are often written with a pleasing attention to language, each word carefully chosen and not one wasted. Below are five favourite novels by poets, all with links to my reviews. Helen Dunmore

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Cover image for Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson

Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson: Much spattering in the kitchen

26 August 2022 / 29 Comments

Almost everything I review on here that’s not fiction is about travel, food or books which tells you something, I guess. Journalist and essayist Rebecca May Johnson’s Small Fires is about cooking and the kitchen – very appropriate given that I’ve recently undergone the upheaval of having our kitchen completely renovated after thirty years –

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Cover image for Housebreaking by Colleen Hubbard

Housebreaking by Colleen Hubbard: Tearing down the house

24 August 2022 / 2 Comments

I was attracted by the blurb for Colleen Hubbard’s Housebreaking which suggested a satisfyingly dysfunctional family set up. It also seemed appropriate given that I had a houseful of builders when I read it, thankfully doing the opposite of Hubbard’s main protagonist who hits on a novel way to prevent the family she detests from

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Cover image for What Happens at Night by Peter Cameron

Paperbacks to Look Out For in September 2022

22 August 2022 / 14 Comments

The tiniest handful of paperbacks for September, perhaps the smallest selection I’ve ever posted, and none of them making me reach urgently for my credit card. I’ll begin with Peter Cameron’s What Happens at Night, set in the depths of winter as a couple travel to a European city to adopt a baby, beset by

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Cover image for The Queen of Desert Island by Donal Ryan

The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan: ‘Time will wind its own sweet way’

19 August 2022 / 15 Comments

Donal Ryan is one of those authors whose name makes my heart sing when I see it in the publishing schedules. The Queen of Dirt Island popped up quite some time before it was due to be published and I snapped it up on NetGalley. Opening with a beginning and an end, it follows four

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Cover image for Is This Love? by C. E. Riley

Is this Love? By C. E. Riley: Who’s telling the truth here?

17 August 2022 / 8 Comments

I couldn’t resist C. E. Riley’s Is This Love? after reading the blurb: the story of a marriage breakdown is told by one of the parties whose gender is never revealed through a narrative addressed to their wife interspersed with diary entries plus transcripts of her testimony to her solicitor. Something of a daring structure

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