Book news, reviews and recommendations
The second part of January’s paperback preview begins with two shortlisted for 2025’s Women’s Prize for fiction. In Rósín O’Donnell’s debut, Nesting, a woman flees her home with her two young daughters, convinced that’s it’s no longer safe for them to live there. Her hoped-for escape proves to be tougher than she’d thought with little […]
Paperbacks to Look Out For in January 2026: Part Two Read More »
The Five Summer Books post in this series proved very popular; I suspect this one won’t attract quite so much attention. Most of us prefer basking in a bit of summer sun if we get the chance but the five books below might make you feel glad to be cosy and inside on a bleak
Five Winter Books I’ve Read Read More »
The Second World War and its aftermath shaped much of the second half of the twentieth century, economically, politically and socially. I’ve not read much fiction set during the war but the five below – all written long after the event – share that backdrop in one way or another, all with a link to
Five Books I’ve Read Set in the Second World War Read More »
Door-stopping chunksters often fit the bill if you’re in the mood for a good old-fashioned bit of storytelling but if it’s a succinct, finely-honed literary punch you’re after, it’s hard to beat a novella. This is my fourth Five Novels I’ve Read post devoted to novellas which gives you some idea of how much I
Five Novellas in Translation I’ve Read Read More »
Having enjoyed Jean-Baptiste Andrea’s A Hundred Million Years and a Day, I was keen to read Devils and Saints, hoping for more striking, cinematic writing. Andrea’s latest novel reminded me a little of Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, partly because it explores similar themes, partly because it seemed to me to fit the Christmas
As ever, there’s little to tempt me in December’s publishing schedules although there are a couple of potential out-of-the-way gems beginning with Jean Bapiste Andrea’s Devils and Saints. A pianist, schooled at a religious institution in the Pyrenees, wows travellers at airports and stations with his virtuoso piano performances, turning down many offers of work
Books to Look Out For in December 2022 Read More »
This is the third post in this series I’ve devoted to novellas. It seemed appropriate to run it today given that it’s Novella November, set up by Cathy at 746Books and now co-hosted by Bookish Beck. The five I’ve chosen are particularly notable for their use of language, sometimes lyrical, sometimes understated. Here then are
Yet Another Five Novellas I’ve Read Read More »
The last quarter of the year brought both increasing hopes of a vaccine to liberate us all from Covid’s grip plus the somewhat nervous excitement of an American presidential election together with six more bookish delights for me. September proved to be my best reading month with three treats all from authors whose previous novels
Books of the Year 2020: Part Four Read More »
Hubert Mingarelli’s The Invisible Land comes billed as the final part of a trilogy linked by the theme of war. I’ve read and reviewed both A Meal in Winter and Four Soldiers, struck by Mingarelli’s exquisite writing, not a description I’d expect to spring to mind when reading about the grimmest of subjects. This third,
The Invisible Land by Hubert Mingarelli (transl. Sam Taylor): The devastation of war Read More »
Lots of interesting novels to look out for in publishers’ last big push for a place on your Christmas present list, although occasionally December’s schedules offer further delights which may well be the case in this strange year. I’ll begin with one I couldn’t resist reading almost as soon as it arrived back in the
Books to Look Out for in November 2020: Part One Read More »
I’m not entirely sure I would have read Jean-Baptiste Andrea’s novella with its rather wordy title had it not been for the enthusiasm of the small indie publisher who approached me to review it which would have been a shame. A Hundred Million Years and a Day was a huge literary hit in France last