Book news, reviews and recommendations
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 –
Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson: Much spattering in the kitchen Read More »
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
Housebreaking by Colleen Hubbard: Tearing down the house Read More »
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
Paperbacks to Look Out For in September 2022 Read More »
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
The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan: ‘Time will wind its own sweet way’ Read More »
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
Is this Love? By C. E. Riley: Who’s telling the truth here? Read More »
The first part of September’s preview began with Kate Atkinsons’s Shrines of Gaiety, an unmissable novel for me, and I’m almost as keen to read A. M. Homes’ The Unfolding, a state of the American nation novel by the sound of it. Stunned by the result of the 2008 election, The Big Guy decides to
Books to Look Out For in September 2022: Part Two Read More »
The Night Interns is oncologist Austin Duffy’s third novel. It takes us back to his workplace, the setting for his debut, This Living and Immortal Thing, following three surgical interns, not long graduated from medical school, working the night shift in a large hospital where they’re expected to avoid calling senior medical staff at all
I was intrigued by Hernan Diaz’s ambitious, complicated novel when I spotted it on Twitter, presented as a ‘literary puzzle’. That eye-catching cover might have had something to do with it, too. It sounded like the kind of book that could fall flat on its face but I put up my hand for a proof.
Trust by Hernan Diaz: ‘Bending and aligning reality’ Read More »
No prizes for guessing which novel will be piled sky high in bookshops this Christmas with the announcement of a new Kate Atkinson. Shrines of Gaiety is set in London in 1926 with the city’s nightlife back in full swing after the war. Nellie Coker is making the most of the opportunities on offer, determined
Books to Look Out For in September 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 – The Book of Form and Emptiness to Bridget Jones’s Diary Read More »
It’s seven years since I reviewed Jo Bloom’s debut, Ridley Road, based on a conversation she’d overheard between her grandfather and an old friend. You may have watched the BBC’s excellent adaptation of this novel about fascism in ‘60s East End London. I enjoyed it very much and was eager to read her new book
Permission by Jo Bloom: ‘We need to talk’ Read More »