Book news, reviews and recommendations
When I’m feeling particularly depressed about the state of the world, I remind myself that equal marriage has been enshrined in law for over a decade here in the UK and has been legalised in many other countries. Set in a small Welsh village in the late 1980s, not so very long ago, Anthony Shapland’s […]
A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland: A love story Read More »
It’s been well over three years since The Mission House was published, perhaps an indication of the care and attention paid in writing Carys Davies’ latest brief, vivid novella. Clear is set in 1843 against the backdrop of two massive upheavals in Scottish history: the continuing, brutal clearance of its estates by voraciously greedy landlords
Clear by Carys Davies: A love story Read More »
The Lodgers is acclaimed poet Holly Pester’s first novel. I’m partial to novels by poets and the premise of this one sounded interesting: a woman returns to her hometown, subletting an apartment overlooking her mother’s house, imagining the life of the lodger who’s taken over her room in the last house she lived. Sounds simple
The Lodgers by Holly Pester: Living on the margins 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. Those of us who witnessed the scenes of the Berlin Wall being torn down in 1989, albeit on
Blasts from the Past: Stasiland by Anna Funder (2004) Read More »
I enjoyed Hiroko Oyamada’s Weasels in the Attic this time last year, ending my review saying that I was keen to explore more of her writing. Originally published in Japan in 2013, The Factory is set in the world of work. Despite the increasingly surreal thread which runs through the novella, it struck a chord
The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada (transl. David Boyd): Busy doing nothing Read More »
I’ve long had a penchant for Irish writing but either that’s becoming more pronounced or there are even more fine writers being published from that country. Whichever it is, that was what drew me to Noel O’Regan’s Though the Bodies Fall set on a stretch of Kerry headland which has been a suicide black spot
Though the Bodies Fall by Noel O’Regan: Mother’s little helper Read More »
I was delighted to spot a new Jenny Erpenbeck on the horizon, putting up my hand as soon as I was offered a proof of Kairos. Erpenbeck’s books offer much food for thought on the events that have shaped modern Germany. Opening in 1986, her new novel charts an affair between Hans, a successful writer
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (transl. Michael Hofmann): ‘The god of fortunate moments’ Read More »
I’d not read any Japanese fiction for quite some time when I spotted Hiroko Oyamada’s eye-catchingly titled Weasels in the Attic on NetGalley and liked the sound of it. Billed as a novel, it reads more like closely linked short stories in which a middle-aged man recounts three separate meals shared with his best friend,
Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada (transl. David Boyd): A tale of three dinners Read More »
It’s been a decade since A. M. Homes’ May We Be Forgiven was published so I was more than keen to read The Unfolding, particularly as the blurb suggested a state of the nation novel, although in this case it’s a look back at that state when the seeds of what was to come eight
The Unfolding by A. M. Homes: ‘What Comes Next?’ 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’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
In Love by Amy Bloom: ‘He is a strong, determined man of mettle and courage’ Read More »