Another busy week! Thank goodness I have nothing booked in for the next fortnight – even for half term, except for promising my daughter a London trip to Camden market. Monday night was my Book Group – this month we read The Amber Fury (aka The Furies) by Natalie Haynes. I read this book last year and Read More
Category: Authors P
Dancing the Seasons with Powell #1
Republished into my blog’s timeline from my lost post archive A Dance to the Music of Time 1: A Question of Upbringing Looking out of his window at some workmen around a brazier, Nicholas Jenkins is reminded of the four seasons on Poussin’s celebrated painting (detail above), and the passing of time in his life. Read More
Embarking on a year of Powell…
I’m totally useless at challenges usually, but I have been meaning to read Anthony Powell’s twelve novel sequence known as The Dance to the Music of Time for so long that I couldn’t put it off any longer. Karen and Ali both did it last year and it’s only around 250 pages per month… so Read More
A post Cold-War spy drama
A Spy’s Life by Henry Porter Many moons ago I read Henry Porter’s first novel Rememberance Day (2000) which was a fast-moving spy thriller and I enjoyed it very much indeed. Finally, years later, I’ve read his second – another standalone spy-thriller about an ex-spy who finds out that you can never truly leave your former Read More
Christmas Shiny Linkiness …
Today, I’d like to direct you over to my reviews in the Shiny New Books Christmas Inbetweeny. By the way, have you tried our Shiny Advent Quiz yet? Ideal as a post-prandial competition… But back to my reviews as these books are all too good to leave off mentioning here too: The Islanders by Pascal Read More
Now it's Sylvia's turn
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Yesterday I reviewed a new YA novel by Meg Wolitzer called Belzhar (here), in which a depressed young woman was helped back to good health by a special English class that studied Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar and then kept rather special personal journals. Reading this book made Read More
A Comic Caper of Camelot and Cross-purposes…
The Table of Less Valued Knights by Marie Phillips I read Marie Phillips first novel, Gods Behaving Badly, an hilarious story of the Greek gods and goddesses living out their lives in modern day North London, pre-blog, and I loved it – I can remember that without having to go back to my records. These bickering Read More
Riding the slipstream …
The Adjacent by Christopher Priest Today I shall direct you to another review I wrote for Shiny New Books:- The Adjacent by Christopher Priest, now out in paperback. Priest is one of those authors who defies genre, yet routinely gets categorised as a science fiction author. True his books often have some SF elements in, and The Read More
Thoughts on my header photo
I’ve been mostly writing reviews for Shiny New Books this week after finishing Frog Music, but wanted to write something on the blog for the weekend… My eye caught my header photo which when taken a few years ago, I compiled a shelf of favourite reads over the years, mostly those getting a full five stars from Read More
Barbara Pym Reading Week
This post was republished into it’s original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. I’ve never read Pym, but was more than happy to join in Barbara Pym Reading Week, hosted by Thomas at My Porch, to help celebrate the centenary of her birth. I consulted my shelves and found four Pyms waiting Read More
A new approach to the problem of werewolves …
Red Moon by Benjamin Percy Inside this chunkster of a werewolf novel are at least two shorter novels trying to get out… Imagine a post 9/11 America into which a new threat has emerged to fuel a nation’s paranoia. It’s the age of the werewolf, or Lycans as Percy dubs them. From the opening chapters Read More
Travelling Man
Lost Luggageby Jordi Punti, translated from the Catalan by Julie Wark. This is the story of Gabriel Delacruz, orphan, international furniture remover and father to four sons. Four boys – born in four different countries to four different mothers; one German, one English, one French and one Spanish, and all christened the local equivalent of the Read More
C'est fun, but c'est n'est pas Les Mis…
Illumination by Matthew Plampin Given the love for all things French and 19th century at the moment thanks to the film I still haven’t seen that is Les Misérables, it was a good time to read a revolutionary novel. Illumination is set later than Hugo’s masterpiece, during the Siege of Paris of 1870-71 in the Franco-Prussian Read More
Re-reading one of my favourite books…
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx I’ve now finished my re-read of Annie Proulx’s novel The Shipping News, that I told you about a few days ago here. When I finished the book the first time, so sure was I that I’d be re-reading, and hopefully re-loving, it that I bought myself a luxury numbered Read More
Falling in love again …
The Joys of Re-reading I don’t do much re-reading. I have too many unread books to get through, both new shiny ones and more of those which have been languishing on the shelves for far too long. Once in a blue moon though, I will re-read a book – just a couple a year usually. It Read More
Carnegie Longlist 2013
The longlist for the 2013 Carnegie Medal has been announced and I was please to see quite a few books I’ve already read on it, plus several in my TBR pile – and of course in an ideal world I’d like to read all of them! The Carnegie Medal is awarded annually to an outstanding Read More
Who killed the penguin?
Morgue Drawer Next Door by Jutta Profijt Translated from the German by Erik J Macki. This unusual crime novel is narrated by Pascha – he used to be a car thief – the best young one in Cologne. Pascha has become a sort of detective, teaming up with Dr Martin Gänsewein, a forensic examiner for the Read More
I was manipulated but didn’t mind, for it was done with kindness …
Wonder by R J Palacio A ten year old boy starts at a new school in the fifth grade… It’s a good prep school, he passed the exam with flying colours… It’ll be the first time he’s been to school, ever… He’s been home-schooled by his Mom… Auggie (short for August) is clever, funny and Read More
Who is John Wayne? Who killed Susan? Does it matter?
Newton’s Swing by Chris Paling Chris Paling has written nine novels, but it’s taken those nine to get some real recognition via being chosen as one of Fiction Uncovered’s 2011 crop of the best authors you haven’t read yet with his book Nimrod’s Shadow. That book is in my TBR pile, but I discovered I Read More
He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!
Had to write a short post on the BBC4 drama Holy Flying Circus which aired this week, it was a mostly marvellous 90 minutes of real Pythonesque homage. It followed the life of the Pythons around the time that Life of Brian was released in the cinema (1979), the TV ‘debate’ between Cleese and Palin v Muggeridge Read More
Getting the right man for the job …
Republished into my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive – and for the 1968 club. True Grit by Charles Portis This was our Book Group choice for reading in March. It’s fair to say that while no-one hated it, not everybody loved it like I did. One thing that we were all agreed on Read More
Don’t call me Vicky! Meet V.I. Warshawski …
Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky. Meet V.I. Warshawski – friends get to call her Vic, never Vicky. Indemnity only is the first in a series of 13 novels featuring the sassy Chicagoan PI. One evening she meets a new client, a banker, who wants her to find his son’s missing girlfriend. Vic goes to the boy’s pad to Read More
A Gothic spine-chiller for kids, adults too!
The Dead of Winter by Chris Priestley Priestley is an accomplished author and illustrator of children’s books, fiction and non-fiction. The past couple of years, he has specialised in horror stories for children. He’s written a series called Tales of Terror which have been well-received, (I know Scott Pack is a fan). The cover of his latest novel is brilliant Read More
How can I be sure?
I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson Rarely in recent times has a book called out to me as much as this one. You see, in common with the teenagers in this novel who are all fanatical David Cassidy fans, I was too. David was Godlike, with his shell necklaces, feathered hair, and whispery voice. You Read More
Boring Postcards is anything but!
Boring Postcards by Martin Parr This was a book I rescued from a local charity shop for just £1 and fell in love with instantly. Martin Parr is, I discover, an amazing photographer in his own right, specialising in capturing everyday life. In Boring Postcards, he has turned editor, selecting a bunch of vintage postcards Read More
Book vs film: Too much Julie, not enough Julia?
Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell This was the July choice for our book group, which gave those who didn’t read the book time to watch the film instead. I managed to do both, and they are quite different animals… Julie Powell and husband Eric hail from Texas. They live in Read More
A rather different kind of literary festival…
Last Friday evening, I had the pleasure of helping staff of Mostly Books man the bookstall at a rather special event at Larkmead School – a state secondary school just up the road from me in Abingdon. The event was the launch of an anthology of writing by sixth form pupils called The Blender which was created in conjunction Read More
The greatest ‘story’ ever told?
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman Storytelling is something that Philip Pullman cares about very much – he told the audience so at the Oxford Literary Festival a week or so ago (link here). It is also immediately apparent when you start to read this book. The language is very straight-forward, Read More
Philip Pullman at the Oxford Literary Festival
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ It was Palm Sunday today, and off I went to the hallows of the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford to see the first full talk by Philip Pullman on his new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which is published tomorrow. It’s the latest volume in the Read More
An evening with Sara Paretsky
Sara Paretsky, the creator of Chicago private investigator V.I.Warshawski, was in town yesterday to coincide with the publication of Hardball, her P.I.’s thirteenth outing. Arriving, she cut a cool figure, clad in gold and skinny trousers with a trendy leopard-print cap and her short, cropped silver hair. The audience immediately warmed to her, with her Read More
