A Life in Books

Seven days in the Italian Lakes, Four Days in Milan and Four Books: Part Two

20 May 2022 / 18 Comments

We’d rented an apartment in Milan, planning to give our stomachs a rest after a week of delicious but rich food although the excellent bakery just a few metres from our front door put paid to that. Unsurprisingly, the weather in Milan was very different from the Lakes, justifying my-pack-for-every-temperature tendency. We headed off to […]

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View of Lake Maggiore from Villa Margherita

Seven days in the Italian Lakes, Four Days in Milan and Four Books: Part One

18 May 2022 / 31 Comments

This is a first for me: a two-part what-I-did-on-my holidays piece. Our city and lakeside stays were so different I couldn’t fit them comfortably into one post, at least, that’s my excuse We’d booked a holiday in Italy just a few weeks before Covid knocked the world for six in February 2020, finally making it

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Cover image for Fight Night by Miriam Toews

Books to Look Out For in June 2022

16 May 2022 / 27 Comments

Back from lovely Italy (more of which later in the week) with a disappointingly short June preview although I have read four of the eight that caught my eye so those come tried and tested beginning with the one that’s most likely to be on readers’ radars already. Miriam Toews’ Fight Night takes the form

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In Love by Amy Bloom: ‘He is a strong, determined man of mettle and courage’

29 April 2022 / 18 Comments

I’ve been a fan of Amy Bloom’s writing for many years. Both her short stories, collected together in Rowing to Eden, and her novels are marked by clarity, elegance and insight. It’s been over four years since White Houses was published and In Love, her memoir, explains the saddest of reasons why. In 2019, Bloom’s

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Covedr image for The Young Pretender by Michael Arditti

The Young Pretender by Michael Arditti: ‘I shall surely die if I may not be a player’

27 April 2022 / 12 Comments

I wasn’t at all sure I’d read Michael Arditti’s The Young Pretender but when I tweeted its arrival several people including Linda Grant and Amanda Craig sang its praises to the skies which persuaded me to give it a try and I’m glad they did. Subtitled ‘The Dramatic Return of Master Betty’, Arditti’s novella is

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Paperbacks to Look Out For in May 2022: Part Two

25 April 2022 / 21 Comments

Whereas I’d read all the books in the first part of May’s paperback preview, I’ve only managed two in the second, starting with Joan Silber’s Secrets of Happiness which begins with the sudden revelation of the second family of an apparently happily married man. Ethan and Allyson took their parents’ happiness for granted until the

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Cover image for Wet Paint by Chloë Ashby

Wet Paint by Chloë Ashby: ‘I’m fine’

22 April 2022 / 10 Comments

I’m always pleased when a book’s title and cover suit it as well as Chloë Ashby’s do for Wet Paint. Both were what made me put up my hand for a proof, intrigued by that title, which turns out to be a neat metaphor, and the jacket which suits its narrator perfectly. Ashby’s debut is

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Cover image for Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy: The personal and the political

20 April 2022 / 8 Comments

A year ago I reviewed Louise Kennedy’s The End of the World is a Cul de Sac which taxed my usual picking of favourites short story review tactic because, without exception, they were all excellent. I was delighted, then, when her first novel, Trespasses, popped through my letter box. Set in early ‘70s County Down

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Cover image for China Room by Sunjeev Sahota

Paperbacks to Look Out For in May 2022: Part One

18 April 2022 / 12 Comments

With the exception of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, I’m not such an avid follower of literary prizes as I once was although I can’t seem to resist speculating about the Booker. That said, this year’s shortlist is making me think I need to keep an eye on the Rathbones Folio Prize, two titles from

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Cover image for Other People Manage by Ellen Hawley

Other People Manage by Ellen Hawley: Finding a way to carry on

15 April 2022 / 12 Comments

It was its cover that attracted me to Ellen Hawley’s Other People Manage. A bit Anne Tylerish, I thought, suggesting a novel about the ordinary everyday with a cast of characters you might recognise and a good dollop of insight. I wasn’t far wrong but there’s also a story behind Hawley’s book, sent unsolicited to

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Cover image for Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart: ‘He had so little to fear now’

13 April 2022 / 12 Comments

It’s unlikely that readers won’t already know about Booker Prize-winning Douglas Stuart’s new novel. Young Mungo has been all over my Twitter timeline for months. Despite the usual reservations about second novels, I was champing at the bit for a copy then circled around it in the same way I did with Shuggie Bain, suspecting

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