Book news, reviews and recommendations
Way back in the mid-‘90s, Jonathan Coe published What a Carve Up!, a wickedly funny satire on Thatcherism in which the Winshaw family had their fingers in a multitude of nasty pies. I was in bookselling at the time and my Penguin rep and good friend, A, gave me a proof, praising it to the […]
Number 11 by Jonathan Coe: The Winshaws are back… Read More »
‘Tis the season of ghost stories. Halloween’s long past, I know but Christmas, when lots of us are cosily tucked up at home, offers the perfect opportunity for a few ghostly frissons. Lorna Gibb’s A Ghost’s Story is somewhat different from the more traditional scare-yourself-rigid variety such as Susan Hill’s splendidly terrifying The Woman in
A Ghost’s Story by Lorna Gibb: A matter of punctuation Read More »
I’ve admired Rupert Thomson’s work for some time. His novels are never predictable, always exploring unexpected terrain from the advertising world, satirized in Soft!, to the Medici court in Secrecy‘s seventeenth century Florence. The last one’s my particular favourite. Famously, Davie Bowie’s is The Insult which appeared as one of his 100 Must-Read Books of
Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson: A sense of belonging Read More »
Oh joy! William Boyd’s back on form with his new novel which has its feet firmly planted in Any Human Heart territory. Boyd set off on a thriller trajectory with the excellent Restless, picked up by Richard and Judy back in 2007, which I followed loyally despite an increasing disappointment: Waiting for Sunrise ended up
Sweet Caress by William Boyd: A welcome return to Any Human Heart territory Read More »
I’ve had a somewhat chequered relationship with Andrew Miller’s writing: his debut, Ingenious Pain, left me eager for his second novel but that left me cold. The next few were enjoyable enough but not nearly as strikingly original as the first. The only one of his novels that’s come close to matching the brilliance of
The Crossing by Andrew Miller: Something of an enigma Read More »
Sarah Moss’s excellent Bodies of Light appeared on the Wellcome Trust Book Prize shortlist for its theme of nineteenth century women in medicine earlier this year. Signs for Lost Children is its sequel, picking up Ally and Tom’s story from where Bodies of Light left off. Newly married, they face separation as Ally practices as a
Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss: What Ally and Tom did next Read More »
Last month, in response to the brouhaha about E L James’ sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey, Sophie Rochester, Director of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, came up with a neat riposte: the Twitter hashtag #BritishwritingisnotallGrey. I’d missed it but Naomi at The Writes of Women wrote a post celebrating it with an excellent list
British Writing is not all Grey Read More »
Jo McMillan’s debut has an unusual subject for what is essentially a commercial novel: life in the 1980s German Democratic Republic as seen through the eyes of Tamworth’s only deeply committed Communist and her teenage daughter. That alone would have been enough to catch my eye but two trips to Berlin, where commemoration of the
Motherland by Jo McMillan: From Tamworth to Berlin with love Read More »
Despite the uncertainty of the weather here in the UK I seem to have veered off into summer reading territory this week with the previous post on The Sunlit Night and now this one. Laura Barnett’s new novel stands out a mile in the publishing schedules as that precious thing: a strong commercial novel, cleverly
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett: The three faces of Eva and Jim Read More »
I enjoyed Polly Samson’s first novel, Out of the Picture, very much. She’s also written two collections of short stories one of which – the cleverly linked Perfect Lives which turned out to be about anything but – I was particularly taken with. She’s not one of those authors whose name is on everyone’s lips
The Kindness by Polly Samson: Oh what a tangled web we weave… Read More »
You could be forgiven for feeling that you’ve read enough about Kate Atkinson’s new novel – it is, after all, everywhere you look in the reviews pages – so do feel free to skip this. I’ve been looking forward to reading A God in Ruins since I first heard about it: for me, it’s one
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson: What Teddy did Read More »