Book news, reviews and recommendations
I’ve read all of Daniel Kehlmann’s translated novels, each very different from the others but all witty and smart. His last book, You Should Have Left, was a short, gothic number, both chilling and riveting. In comparison Tyll is a lengthy, historical novel set against the backdrop of the Thirty Years War which raged across […]
Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann (transl. Ross Benjamin): Telling truth to power Read More »
I could start this post with yet another protestation that I’m not an historical fiction fan but I’m not entirely sure that’s true, particularly after listing Imogen Hermes Gower’s The Mermaid and the Mrs Hancock amongst my books of 2018. Perhaps I should adopt the term Craig Cliff mentions in his acknowledgements – romanzi storici
The Mannequin Makers by Craig Cliff: Several stories for the price of one Read More »
Edward Carey’s novel arrived through my letterbox so far in advance of publication that I’d forgotten all about it, only picking it up when I felt the need for something long enough to lose myself in. Based on the early life of Madame Tussaud, Little worked a treat, taking me first to eighteenth-century Switzerland then
Little by Edward Carey: Only in stature 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. When I was in bookselling I knew that if a rep showed me a book on the Franklin
Blasts from the Past: The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett (1998) 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. I’d read one of Carol Birch’s earlier novels years before Jamrach’s Menagerie was published and while I enjoyed
Blasts from the Past: Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch (2011) 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. Ingenious Pain is the example I often cite when talking about the difficulty of following an impressive first
Blasts from the Past: Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller (1997) Read More »
Here’s one I’ve been looking forward to ever since I spotted it in the publisher’s catalogue. Helen Dunmore’s new novel, Birdcage Walk, is set in her home town of Bristol against the backdrop of the French Revolution raging across the Channel while Britain looks nervously on. It’s the story of a young woman caught up
Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore: The rights of women Read More »
Those much over-used epithets ‘epic’, ‘sweeping’ and ‘saga’ are useful signals when they crop up in press releases, semaphoring that the book in question is probably not for me. To be fair, they’re not words used to describe Sana Krasikov’s The Patriots but just for once they seem appropriate. This doorstopper of a novel, apparently
The Patriots by Sana Krasikov: Here we go again… Read More »
Jake Arnott’s first novel, The Long Firm, was published way back in 1999. I was a huge fan: he summoned up London’s underworld in prose as sharp as a ‘60s mobster’s suit, expertly blending fact with fiction. A hard act to follow, then, and sorry to say Arnott’s never quite matched it for me but
The Fatal Tree by Jake Arnott: A rollicking tale of thieves and whores 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. I went through a phase of reading novels about Native Americans of which Michael Crummey’s debut was one
Blasts from the Past: River Thieves by Michael Crummey (2001) Read More »
I suspect Carol Birch has something of a fascination with the world of circuses and freak shows. Set in the nineteenth century, her last novel, Jamrach’s Menagerie, followed Jaffy who is sent to the Dutch East Indies to capture a ‘dragon’ for the eponymous menagerie but finds himself shipwrecked. Orphans of the Carnival ventures far
Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Birch: Roll up, roll up… Read More »