Book news, reviews and recommendations
Given its historical women’s fiction label, I took a punt on A. Rushby’s All Her Beautiful Deaths, not being at all keen on the idea of gendered descriptions, but I was attracted by the idea of Victorian memorial portraits. It follows Minnie, who becomes a companion to Edith in 1865, and Hadley, a young twenty-first
All Her Beautiful Deaths by A. Rushby: An art world historical page-turner Read More »
Those of you with long memories might recall M. L. Stedman’s debut, The Light Between Oceans, published in the UK back in 2012. I loved it which made me keen to read her new one, A Far-flung Life. Largely set in the 1950s and ‘60s on a sheep station in Western Australia, it follows the
I was hesitant about Olivia Laing’s The Silver Book when it was pitched to me. I’d been impressed by The Lonely City and The Trip to Echo Spring but writers who excel at non-fiction sometimes lard their novels with too much research. Its premise, though, is such an interesting one I accepted. Set during in
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing: ‘We are all in danger’ Read More »
This is the fourth novel by Robert Seethaler I’ve reviewed on here. The first was A Whole Life which sees a man lead a simple yet rich life, leaving his alpine valley just once. After that I snapped up both The Tobacconist and The Field as soon as they appeared. All offer a slice of
I can’t resist an art theme as regular readers of this blog will know and Lucy Steeds’s debut The Artist sounded particularly intriguing. Set in Provence over the summer of 1920, it begins and ends in 1957 with a woman gazing at a painting she knows intimately in London’s National Gallery. No. Ettie knows better
The Artist by Lucy Steeds: ‘I want you to see me’ Read More »
The eighteenth century was a fascinating time in European history, a period which saw the development of the Enlightenment ideas that formed the modern Western world. Close to its end, the bloody convulsion of the French Revolution, sent shockwaves through the continent and beyond. Several of the five novels below are set around the time
Five Novels Set in the Eighteenth Century I’ve Read Read More »
Much of my reading can be described as contemporary fiction but I sometimes stick my toe in the historical fiction water. I was convinced that was a rare occurrence but, apparently, I’ve read enough to put together several of these posts spread across different centuries. I should start off in the twentieth century but that
Five Novels Set in the Nineteenth Century I’ve Read 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 into as many hands as I could. Barry Unsworth’s Morality Play is set in the late fourteenth century, a time of calamitous upheaval. The country
Blasts from the Past: Morality Play by Barry Unsworth (1995) Read More »
I have no idea how I’ve managed not to come across Yiyun Li’s writing before. She has quite a substantial backlist which somehow passed me by. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was that arresting cover that caught my eye on Twitter but it was the blurb that made me want to read it. Li’s novel is the
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li: ‘I was a whetstone to Fabienne’s blade’ Read More »
I’ve written about my ambivalence towards Lauren Groff’s writing before in a review of her last novel, Fates and Furies, back in 2015 and so when Matrix arrived I wasn’t at all sure about reading it, even more so given its twelfth-century setting. Groff’s novel is her reimagining of the life of Marie de France,
Matrix by Lauren Groff: ‘An island of women’ Read More »
Back in 2013, I wrote about meeting Beatrice Hitchman at what was supposed to be a summer afternoon Pimms party in a neighbour’s garden, unsurprisingly relocated to their living room thanks to the British weather. Hitchman’s debut, Petite Mort, was just about to be published. I enjoyed it very much and was delighted when All
All of You Every Single One by Beatrice Hitchman: Choosing your own family Read More »