How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall I hugely enjoy reading all the buzz about the Booker Prize, but I normally don’t indulge in any deliberate speculative reading, preferring to pick and choose a select few short/longlisted titles after the event. Today though I can say I’m totally with it just this once, Read More
Category: Authors H
This novel snaps, crackles and pops with electricity
The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt This Orange prize short-listed novel has had some mixed reviews. To be honest, it’s a bit of a mixture itself, refusing to be easily genrified being: part fictionalised biography of mad physicist Nikola Tesla, part love story, part time-travel SF/fantasy, and part mainstream novel set in New Read More
What did mother do in the war?
The Spy Game by Georgina Harding The direct gaze of the woman sipping a cup of tea on the dustjacket of the UK hardback really caught my eye – a spendid cover and evocative title too. Reading the blurb, I fully expected an espionage story straight out of John Le Carre, but this thoughtful and Read More
A difficult and challenging read – stay with it to be rewarded!
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban Let’s face it, my book group is probably thinking (to use Sir Alan’s phrase from this week’s Apprentice) there must be “a village looking for an idiot”, for I chose this book as our monthly read. No disrespect to them intended for, although we are a quite literary lot, this Read More
The way of the Warrior
Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori) by Lian Hearn This is the first novel of a series set in an imaginary world based on feudal Japan and the chivalric Bushido code of conduct. It successfully takes you into that world of honor and loyalty, mastery of martial arts, married with simple living and Read More
There are faeries everywhere – but not all can see them …
The Thirteen Treasures by Michelle Harrison The debut novel from this young author is full of proper faeries, the kind with an ‘e’ from British folklore. They’re there right from the beginning, when Tanya’s faery tormentors decide how to make her day – not! For fourteen year old Tanya has second sight – she can Read More
Another modern classic novel for older children
The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban This Pinnochio-esque tale for older children written in 1967 of a clockwork Daddy mouse and his child is a modern children’s classic. Deservedly so, it features a road trip for the discarded and broken wind-up mice full of adventure, peril and featuring a nasty rat-baddy, also much Read More
My Tango with Barbara Strozzi by Russell Hoban
This was my first visit to Hobanville – why it’s taken me so long I don’t know, but I’m keen to go again really soon. Underlying My Tango with Barbara Strozzi is a traditional boy meets girl romance, cleverly told by the two would-be lovers’ voices alternating chapter by chapter, but on top are layers Read More
The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman
I have my Secret Santa to thank for reading this book – it was unputdownable, a wonderful choice – thank you! The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman is a quirky, modern fairy tale taking its inspiration from the Brothers Grimm. A young girl wishes her mother dead, and then when it happens, she lets it Read More
Book Bloggers Secret Santa
I signed up for the Book Bloggers Secret Santa last month, and chose and sent my gift. This morning the postlady brought me a packet of joy! My present from my Secret Santa had arrived. I couldn’t wait to get inside the jiffy, nice purple wrapping paper (gets the thumbs up from Juliet who is Read More
I’m a Hardy convert!
Back in September on this blog I confessed that I had never read any Thomas Hardy. As this admission coincided with the recent BBC adaptation I chose Tess of the D’Urbervilles to read. I only watched the first two episodes on TV though, and can honestly say I didn’t know the second half of the Read More
I Love Lists!
Books about books are like a magnet to me – if they’re booklist books, they have even more pull. They can also drive you mad when you find your own favourites titles or novelists are missing and others you think less of are included. Any book of this kind is entirely subjective and the opinion Read More
Guilty Secrets #1
This is the first in an occasional series where I am going to risk ridicule and tell you which books and authors I really ought to have read but haven’t. I am enjoying the new BBC adaptation of Tess of the D’Urbervilles immensely. Its young star Gemma Arterton is just the part with her Pre-Raphaelite Read More
