Book news, reviews and recommendations
I’m on a winning streak with Irish women authors this year. I’m sure to hit a dud eventually but Niamh Mulvey’s debut, Hearts and Bones, certainly isn’t it. This slim collection comprising ten stories comes with a subtitle which sets the tone, echoed by that brilliant jacket, as its narrators, mostly women, look back at […]
Given my complete lack of interest in sport you might think I’d turn down the offer of a novel about a basketball star and a sportswriter but I’d enjoyed several of Benjamin Markovits’ previous novels and had fond memories of Chad Hardbach’s The Art of Fielding. The Sidekick explores the demands made on sports stars
The Sidekick by Benjamin Markovits: This sporting life Read More »
Just one post for July’s paperbacks and a thin one at that. I blame summer reading which tends not to appeal to me. The good news is that four out of the six titles are tried and tested beginning with Amor Towles The Lincoln Highway, a 1950s American odyssey. Released early from Salina, the youth
Paperbacks to Look Out For in July 2022 Read More »
I knew about James Cahill’s Tiepolo Blue back in October, alerted to it by a copy editor friend who’d loved it. A knows her literary onions so I was primed and ready to go when Cahill’s debut started popping up on my Twitter timeline although even without her recommendation, I would’ve been keen. Set in
Tiepolo Blue by James Cahill: Dr Faustus, I presume? Read More »
Given that it features a child narrator, I was a wee bit wary of Miriam Toews’ Fight Night despite having enjoyed her previous novels. It’s such a difficult trick to pull off, painfully clunky if mishandled. Toews’ new novel takes the form of a letter written by nine-year-old Swiv to her father who her grandmother
Fight Night by Miriam Toews: ‘That’s patriarchy, Swiv, make a note’ Read More »
The second July instalment begins in one of my favourite cities where I’d love to be right now thanks to a houseful of builders, no kitchen and basic bathroom facilities. It will all be worth it in the end; at least that’s what I keep telling myself. Bea Setton’s Berlin is about a young woman
Books to Look Out For in July 2022: Part Two Read More »
Assisted dying isn’t the easiest theme to explore but it was what attracted me to New Zealand writer Chloe Lane’s The Swimmers set over a long holiday weekend in which a daughter visits the family home for the first time. We know within a few pages that Erin’s terminally ill mother has asked her sister
The Swimmers by Chloe Lane: We are family Read More »
I’ve read and enjoyed David Park’s fiction before, admiring his quietly elegant style, and was keen to read Spies in Canaan, putting it aside for a little while after it popped through my letterbox. In the event, I read it against the backdrop of Russia’s preparations for invading Ukraine, horribly appropriate for this novel which
Spies in Canaan by David Park: ‘Stand up straight and true’ Read More »
July see the summer reading season in full swing for publishers with lots of novels aimed at entertaining readers by the pool. Unusually for me, I’m beginning with one that fits that bill well. Liza Klaussmann’s This is Gonna End in Tears is set in the summer of 1984 when a few chickens come home
Books to Look Out For in July 2022: 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 – Sorrow and Bliss to That They May Face the Rising Sun Read More »
I was keen to read Stewart O’Nan’s Ocean State having enjoyed his sympathetic, wryly humorous portrait of ageing, Henry, Himself, a few years ago. This new novel sounded entirely different. Opening just before Halloween in 2009, it arrived with a handful of American sweets as part of the marketing package including Tootsie Rolls which frequently
Ocean State by Stewart O’Nan: A keeper of secrets Read More »