Book news, reviews and recommendations
Gwendoline Riley is one of those authors whose work I feel I should have read before now but for some reason I’ve never got around to it. She’s quietly gathered a good deal of acclaim over the years since her first novel, Cold Water: First Love is her fifth. Given its title, you could be […]
First Love by Gwendoline Riley: A pin-point sharp novella Read More »
Back in 2015, Claire Fuller’s much acclaimed Our Endless Numbered Days made it on to my books of the year list. I have a track record of disappointment with second novels, either expecting too much on my part or perhaps just one excellent novel in them on the author’s. Nothing wrong with that, of course:
Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller: Knowing the worst or hoping for the best? Read More »
Such a striking cover for this debut, and entirely fitting given it’s set in the English countryside although animal lovers may get a bit more than they bargained for in this novel about a young Slovakian woman who leaves London to work as an au pair for a couple at Fairmont Hall, the house which
English Animals by Laura Kaye: An outsider’s view… Read More »
This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could. If you’re a regular visitor to this blog you may have noticed that I’m a huge fan of
Blasts from the Past: Talking to the Dead by Helen Dunmore (1996) Read More »
Back in 2012 Anna Stothard’s The Pink Hotel was longlisted for what was then the Orange Prize. In case you’re wondering Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles won it that year. I remember enjoying Stothard’s novel very much. It may have been the jacket with its powder blue, low slung car parked outside a pastel
The Museum of Cathy by Anna Stothard: Tainted love Read More »
I’m something of a Sarah Moss fan having thoroughly enjoyed the closely linked Bodies of Light and Signs for Lost Children, set in the nineteenth century, and Names for the Sea, her account of her year spent in Iceland. Her writing draws you in: it’s imaginative, witty and she knows how to spin a good
The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss: Living in uncertain times Read More »
This is the second novel I’ve read in a year in which traditional gender roles are reversed within a marriage – Andrew Miller’s The Crossing saw Tim decide to stay at home and look after their child while Maud continues her work in clinical research – and I’ve since read a third, Sarah Moss’ superb
Conrad and Eleanor by Jane Rogers: Absence makes the heart grow fonder Read More »
I’ve been an admirer of Georgina Harding’s writing since reading her debut with its poetically beautiful descriptive passages. Each of her four novels is very different from the other although three share the theme of the aftermath of war. Set in 1616 The Solitude of Thomas Cave took us to the Arctic where one man
The Gun Room by Georgina Harding: The inescapable shadow of war Read More »
This is the first in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could. It’s quite possible that if I read them now I might not feel quite the same about all
Blasts from the Past: So Many Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor (2006) Read More »
I was looking for something a little more straightforward after the literary fireworks of Nicola Barker’s The Cauliflower® which is why I turned to Barney Norris’ debut – that and its Salisbury setting. I live an hour’s train journey from Salisbury with its famous cathedral, mentioned often in Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain,
Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain by Barney Norris: Only connect Read More »
Even if you’ve not already read one of Nicola Barker’s novels you’ll gather from its cover – and perhaps its title – that you’re going to be in for a wacky ride with The Cauliflower®. It’s born of Barker’s fascination with Sri Ramakrishna – an avatar, widely regarded as having played a leading role in reviving
The Cauliflower® by Nicola Barker: A Marmite novel, unsurprisingly Read More »