Sheila Armstrong

My 2023 Booker Wish List

Not my favourite prize but I seem unable to resist putting together a wish list for the Booker, quite possibly because I know very few will be fulfilled but I’m keen to give some more neglected titles an airing even though they’re unlikely to have been nominated let alone make the judges’ grade. To be …

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Cover image for Falling Animals by Sheila Armstrong

Falling Animals by Sheila Armstrong: For those in peril on the sea

I was delighted to spot Sheila Armstrong’s first novel in the publishing schedules having been so impressed with her short story collection, How to Gut a Fish. That had a touch of the surreal about it which I half expected from Falling Animals, given it’s slightly disconcerting, rather lovely cover, but Armstrong’s novel is not …

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Cover image for The Second Cut by Louise Welsh

Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2023: Part One

Lots of paperback goodies to look out for this February, several tried and tested by me beginning with Louise Welsh’s The Second Cut, published twenty years after her brilliant debut, The Cutting Room, starred the unforgettable Rilke, given to dicey sexual encounters in Glasgow parks by night, mixing with morally dubious individuals in his job …

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Cover image for How to Gust a Fish by Sheila Armstrong

How to Gut a Fish by Sheila Armstrong: A striking, idiosyncratic collection

Irish writer Sheila Armstrong’s debut collection How to Gut a Fish came with a glowing endorsement from Roddy Doyle which was part of the lure for me; that and the hint of the surreal in its blurb. The collection comprises fourteen stories, none more than twenty pages long, each very different from the other. As …

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