Book news, reviews and recommendations
I wrote a post about friendship a little while ago, part of my Five Books I’ve Read series, beginning it by saying how few novels there seemed to be about friendship, and fewer still about male friendship, at least in my reading experience. Paolo Cognetti’s The Eight Mountains offers a corrective to that. At its […]
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. This one’s a surprising one for me. It has elements of the fantastical which is usually a literary
Blasts from the Past: The Vintner’s Luck by Elizabeth Knox (1999) Read More »
So much has been said about Paul Kalanithi’s account of the twenty-two months from his diagnosis with lung cancer to his death at the age of thirty-six that I’m not sure what I can add of any value except to tell you emphatically to read it. This week sees its paperback publication in the UK.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi: Bearing witness Read More »
Given that it’s the time of year when you just want to curl up with an absorbing, untaxing read every so often and forget about the weather, not to mention the ceaseless barrage of pre-electionioneering that’s already battering us here in the UK and will be for months to come, Nicci Cloke’s Lay Me Down
Lay Me Down by Nicci Cloke: A tale of two lovers and one city Read More »
Today is Blue Monday, the day when we’re all at our lowest here in the UK, apparently: the weather is grim, there are several months to get through before spring, the post-Christmas credit card bills are in, and the New Year’s resolutions are probably broken. Traditionally in the book trade it’s the time of year
Reading is Good for you Read More »