Book news, reviews and recommendations
Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list, […]
Six Degrees of Separation – The Snow Child to Weasels in the Attic Read More »
Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list,
Six Degrees of Separation – Sorrow and Bliss to That They May Face the Rising Sun Read More »
Not a huge selection of paperbacks for October but enough to merit two posts I’m pleased to say. I’ve read three of the first batch already including one which at first sight seemed to be a piece of opportunistic publishing. Originally published in the US back in 2011, Tayari Jones’ Silver Sparrow was released here
Paperbacks to Look Out for in October 2020: Part One Read More »
Originally published in the US back in 2011, Tayari Jones’ Silver Sparrow has been released here in the UK on the heels of Jones’ 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction triumph. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d read it, not having been quite as impressed with An American Marriage as the judges, but its premise is an
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones: A tale of two sisters, secrets and lies Read More »
I often look for a theme on which to hang these posts and seldom manage to find one but this is one of those rare occasions. All the titles that have caught my eye for this second March instalment seem to be about women, marriage and relationships, or both beginning with Jami Attenberg’s All This
Books to Look Out For in March 2020: Part Two Read More »
Unusually for me, this is the third book I’ve reviewed this year which is far from shiny and new. Something of an American publishing sensation, Ann Petry’s The Street was the first novel by a black woman to sell over a million copies in 1946. This new edition is introduced by Tayari Jones, whose An American
The Street by Ann Petry: Walls closing in Read More »
The first batch of March’s paperbacks fell neatly into a time sequence whereas this one jumps about all over the place both in terms of period and theme. I’ll begin with a one of my 2018 favourites: Donal Ryan’s From a Low and Quiet Sea, a carefully crafted, moving novella which explores love, loss and
Paperbacks to Look Out for in March 2019: Part Two Read More »
I’d heard nothing about An American Marriage before it arrived, its cover adorned with an Oprah’s Book Club selection tag which always reminds me of Jonathan Franzen’s pompous refusal to have anything to do with Winfrey’s endorsement of The Corrections, considering himself to be part of the ‘high art literary tradition‘. Well, la di da.
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: Love in the balance Read More »