Picador

Cover image for Devotion by Hannah Kent

Devotion by Hannah Kent: ‘My life was only ever a hand’s breadth’

It’s seems an age since I reviewed Hannah Kent’s debut, Burial Rites. For a long time, it was one of my most visited posts and I’ve never been able to work out why. Despite enjoying it, I didn’t get around to The Good People but enthusiastically accepted when I was offered Devotion. Both her previous […]

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Cover image for White Spines by Nicholas Royle

White Spines by Nicholas Royle: Confessions of a Book Collector

I’m a reader rather than a collector which is probably a good thing, keeping my book acquisitions clear of duplicates (or worse) bought because I couldn’t resist a new edition’s cover. Nicholas Royle is both but his collecting habits are very particular: his imprint of choice is Picador, the white spined variety although he has

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Cover image for The Painter's Friend by Howard Cunnell

The Painter’s Friend by Howard Cunnell: ‘The Source of Art is the Life of a People’

As regular readers will know, I can’t resist a novel with an art theme which is why I put up my hand for a copy of Howard Cunnell’s The Painter’s Friend. That and the memory of the praise heaped upon his memoir, Fathers and Sons, which explored his own relationship with his father as his

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Cover image for Nightshift by Kiare Ladner

Nightshift by Kiare Ladner: A disquieting tale of seduction and obsession

I was very taken with Nightshift’s premise of an obsessive relationship between two women set against a backdrop of nocturnal London when I spotted it on Twitter and put up my hand for a proof. Kiare Ladner’s debut follows Meggie’s attempt to exorcise Sabine’s influence, two decades after they last saw each other. Their toxic

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Cover image for The Blind Light by Stuart Evers

The Blind Light by Stuart Evers: A tale of two families and a country

Regular visitors may have noticed that I’m much more of a novella than a chunkster kind of reader, favouring concision over what so often turns into waffle, but I was attracted to Stuart Evers’ The Blind Light by its premise despite its 540+ pages. Spanning six decades, Evers’ novel tells the story of post-war Britain

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Cover image for Wilful Disregard by Lena Andersson

Wilful Disregard by Lena Andersson (transl. Sarah Death): None so blind as those who will not see

I already had Lena Andersson’s Wilful Disregard in my sights but when Charlotte Collins, translator of the excellent A Whole Life, left a comment praising it to the skies on my January paperback preview it zoomed up my list. She called it ‘the cleverest dissection of misguided obsession that I’ve ever read’, a spot on

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