It’s a real achievement to become a best-selling author in your late eighties, as Magnusson did with her 2020 book Döstädning: The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, which is all about doing a gentler version of Marie Kondo in preparation for your own death, so as not to leave it all to your loved Read More
Tag: Ageing
Two short NF titles for #NovNov22
The third week of Novellas in November hosted by Cathy and Rebecca focuses on short non-fiction, so here are two short reviews for you, both in translation carrying on week 2’s theme also… Stalking the Atomic City by Markiyan Kamysh Translated from the Ukrainian by Hanna Lelive & Reilly Costigan-Humes Ever since I read the chapter on disaster Read More
Kings of a Dead World by Jamie Mollart
Earlier this year, I was approached by Jamie to see if I’d like to read his Spec SF novel. I’m often slightly wary of direct author approaches in case I have to disappoint, but having fallen in love with the cover, I am relieved to tell you that this is a superb novel. It shows Read More
Review Catch-up: Delacourt, Emery & Yates
The Woman Who Didn’t Grow Old by Grégoire Delacourt Translated by Vineet Lal Back in 2015 I read Delacourt’s first novel, The List of My Desires, which was a heart-warming French charmer of a novel – if you enjoy the books of Antoine Laurain or Jean-Paul Didierlaurent, you’d probably enjoy Delacourt too. The Woman Who Read More
Paul Auster Reading Week: Man in the Dark
I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness. Another great opening line from Auster in his 2008 novel. The narrator is August Brill, a writer who is seventy-two, living again with his daughter and Read More
Wellcome shortlist #1
To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell The second book in my shadow reading from the Wellcome Book Prize shortlist, (the first was The Vaccine Race which I’ll be reviewing for the official blog tour in a couple of week’s time). I loved this book from the front cover to the back, starting with its Read More
She’s Nailed it!
How Hard Can It Be? by Allison Pearson Allison Pearson’s first novel, I Don’t Know How She Does It, published in 2002, was an instant bestseller and one of the defining women’s novels of the time about the pressure to have it all. Her protagonist, Kate Reddy, was a successful fund manager in the City, Read More
Brian Aldiss, still going strong at 88
On Thursday evening, I was privileged to attend the book launch of veteran author Brian Aldiss’ latest novel Comfort Zone at Blackwells in Oxford. Given that it, and his entire backlist is being published by imprint The Friday Project, I also got to meet TFP’s head honcho Scott Pack for the first time too. Scott’s blog Me Read More
A body’s life, a life’s memories
Winter Journal by Paul Auster I’ve been an Auster-fan ever since I first read The New York Trilogy in the late 1980s, which I re-read and reviewed here a couple of years ago. Between writing his novels, Auster also writes essays and volumes of memoir. Winter Journal is a memoir largely told through the things that Read More
