#20BooksofSummer22 No 4 – A super debut from 2002

The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh Having loved Louise Welsh’s Plague Times Trilogy, (see here, here and here with interview here), and read her second outing Tamburlaine Must Die for 20 books two years ago, it was about time that I read more of her back catalogue and her debut novel in particular, as she Read More

The Coming of Christianity and the Beginning of the Death of Magic?

Sistersong by Lucy Holland I read less fantasy these days, but when I do, there’s no type I enjoy more than that with an Arthurian or Dark Ages setting. Sistersong is exactly that, and I found it hard to stop reading this novel which occupies that fertile fantasy crossover land between YA and adult reading, Read More

Novellas in November: Two French ones

Novellas in November is hosted by Laura at Reading in Bed.  I really enjoyed taking part last year, here is the first of what I hope will be several posts this month, this time on two French novellas in translation. Lie With Me by Philippe Besson Translated by Molly Ringwald Before I tell you about the book, yes, it is translated by Read More

Two recent reads – one prose, one poetry

A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale This was our book group read for August, which we discussed earlier this week – and we scored yet another hit! I certainly loved this novel, and although not all in the group quite shared my enthusiasm for it, everyone seemed to enjoy it. Often, when we all Read More

20 Books of Summer #5 & #6 – Greer & Hustvedt

I’d expected to read more books in July than my list shows, having been on ‘school holidays’ since July 5, (although slaving at home on and off for a fortnight on the School magazine). But then I look at my bed – which is where the books I’m reading tend to sit – and there Read More

A Mexican tragedy – a thriller as reportage

Call Him Mine by Tim MacGabhann the book you have in front of you now – isn’t quite a nonfiction novel, and it’s most certainly not news, but it’s not quite fiction, either. In Mexico, there’s a strong tradition of the crónica, a hybrid form that owes its subjectivity to reportage, its questioning of onjectivity Read More

Trapped in genteel poverty

Republished into its original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters When we chose the second title for the Shiny Book Club, we wanted something totally different to the first (The Bees, which I reviewed here). It had to fit our criteria of being a Shiny New Book Read More