The Widow’s Tale by Mick Jackson A recently widowed woman in her early sixties flees her London home and well-meaning but irritating friends. She rents a cottage in a North Norfolk village, telling no-one where she’s gone. There, she gradually works her grief out – all the classic stages of denial, anger, what ifs, depression Read More
Category: Authors J
Ten Books that Represent Great Britain
A couple of days ago, Simon at Savidge Reads and Thomas at My Porch created a new meme (Yes Simon, I know you didn’t want to call it a meme, but it is one – a nice one!). The challenge is to pick ten books that sum up your own country geographically but authors from that Read More
Life by the tracks …
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson I couldn’t bring myself to spend £12.99 on the hardback of this novella, but now it is out in paperback I snapped it up as I’d heard great things about it – and wilderness novels always seem to appeal to me. Train Dreams tells the life story of Robert Grainier, Read More
From Here to Eternity – first thoughts …
One of the books I’m currently reading is James Jones’s doorstop of a novel From Here to Eternity. First published in 1951, it’s set in Hawaii, and follows the peacetime exploits of G company in the months immediately preceding Pearl Harbor and the USA’s entry into WWII in 1941. It has just been republished with Read More
From the Silk Road to Norwood
A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson It’s 1923. Evangeline English is accompanying her sister Lizzie as part of a Christian mission to Kashgar, in Western China on the ancient Silk Road route. Eva in turn is accompanied by her trusty bicycle. She keeps a diary about their expedition which she plans to Read More
Stieg Larsson meets Forrest Gump but way better …
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson Translated by Rod Bradbury You might think he could have made up his mind earlier, and been man enough to tell the others of his decision. But Allan Karlsson had never been given to pondering things too long.So the idea had Read More
‘Finishing’ in 1930s Munich
Winter Games by Rachel Johnson Upon receiving Rachel Johnson’s latest novel, a tale of toffs being ‘finished’ in pre-war Germany, I dove in straight away and devoured it. The cover refreshingly has a headed young woman with her face showing on, which makes a nice change to the usual headless or back views we’re subjected Read More
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Republished back into my blog’s timeline from my old blog., combined 2012 posts from author event and book review… World Book Night 2012 in Abingdon with Rachel Joyce I spent the evening of World Book Night at Abingdon Library in the company of Rachel Joyce – the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I Read More
World Book Night in Abingdon with Rachel Joyce
I spent the evening of World Book Night at Abingdon Library in the company of Rachel Joyce – the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I read this book at the end of March and loved it – my review is here. After reading from the novel, Rachel then talked in conversation Read More
“I would walk 500 miles” – well 627 actually…
The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce This is a road novel, but with a difference. Harold Fry used to rep for the brewery, but he’s now retired. He has nothing to do but get in his wife Maureen’s way. He’s in a rut, they’re in a rut, basically ever since their son Read More
A brilliantly entertaining “Not a Sherlock Holmes” novel…
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R King Novels which adopt other authors’ characters can be a bit hit or miss – I think I was the only person who thoroughly enjoyed PD James’s Pride & Prejudice sequel. With the benefit of hindsight, I totally saw it as a continuation of the TV series though, rather than Read More
The Baroness takes on Austen
Death Comes to Pemberleyby P D James Novels that take on the classics have a chequered history, and will always be subjected to increased scrutiny to see if they live up to the premise. Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and Gone with the wind, for instance, have all had prequels, sequels and adapations written with varying degrees Read More
Old reviews from Feb 2011: Jones – Lukas – Nicholls
A novel of ‘Great expectations’ – Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones With its lovely cover, and the promise of Dickensian fun in paradise, I was easily lured into this novel. I’ll admit that having missed most of the hype about it when it came out, I was expecting a soft and lightly humorous novel along the Read More
Old reviews from 2011 – 2 second novels
The Facility by Simon Lelic Simon Lelic’s first novel, Rupture, (see here) was such a breath of fresh air last year that when I was able to get my hands on an advance copy of his second, I could hardly wait to read it and for the publication date to get near. Would it be as innovative Read More
3 reviews from Jan 2011: Hornby, Jensen & Gaiman
Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby I don’t know how he does it, but there’s something about a Nick Hornby book that so hooks me, that I feel part of the story – I can always identify with some of the characters. Juliet Naked is the story of a lost rock star, a completist fan and his Read More
New Stories from the Mabinogion: vols 1 & 2
The Mabinogion is a collection of medieval Welsh stories of Celtic origin – they are written very much in the bardic tradition of oral storytelling. The eleven tales as normally collected have the four ‘branches’ of the Mabinogion proper, a set of Native Tales and three Romances; the Native Tales also include early references to Read More
Return of the Living Dead …
It’s that time of year again when I fit a few spooky novels into my October reading plans. Last year I read only vampire stories – this year I’m ranging more widely for fearsome creatures and I’ve started off with a ‘Teen Gothic’ novel about werewolves… Claire De Lune by Christine Johnson Claire is just a Read More
Smoke and Mirrors?
The Illusionist by Jennifer Johnston Jennifer Johnston is Dublin-born, and won the Whitbread prize for her novel The Old Jest in 1979; The Illusionist was published in 1995. It tells the story of Stella and Martyn who meet on a train, fall in love, get married, have a child, fall out of love, then Martyn Read More
My Books of the Noughties
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends, and got everything you wished for. I’m still mid-way through the round of family visits, so here’s a post I prepared earlier. Yes it is a list – I’m going to inflict my Books of the Decade on you – all five Read More
In life, everything counts …
Addition by Toni Jordan This is another very unconventional love story, (see also Something Beginning With a few posts down). Grace has a form of OCD that makes her count everything and ritualise her life in numbers. This makes doing anything out of the ordinary worrying, and Grace is no longer able to work as Read More
What did you do in the war Mum?
War Crimes For The Home by Liz Jensen The things normal people got up to in the war. Good girl Gloria falls for a GI and learns to be bad with disastrous consequences. Told in flashback, Gloria is now an old lady and installed in an old folks nursing home, as her son Hank thinks Read More
A Trio of Five Star Books
As this is a new blog and we’re still getting to know each other, I thought I’d briefly introduce you to a trio of the 5 star books I’ve read this year, so you can see some of the books I’ve really enjoyed reading. The Scheme for Full Employment by Magnus Mills This was a Read More
