The Paper House by Carlos Maria Dominguez, Translated by Nick Caistor This beautifully illustrated novella by Dominguez, an Argentinian author, is about people who are obsessed by books, and whose houses become libraries, (much like Gaskell Towers then, but I jest). It starts with a death… One day in the spring of 1998, Bluma Lennon bought Read More
Category: Title begins with P
Aaarrr! Here be Pirates, Aaarrr, me hearties!
This Easter, I shall be hotfooting it to the multiplex to see the latest film from the ever-wonderful Aardman (or should that be Aaarrr-dman, sic) Animations which is called The Pirates – Band of Misfits (Trailer here). With an all star cast of voices including Hugh Grant as the Pirate Captain and Salma Hayek as Read More
Henry Green Week – Party Going
Party Going by Henry Green It’s Henry Green Week hosted by Winston’s Dad. Before Stu decided to champion this underappreciated British author, who mostly wrote in the second quarter of the 20th C, I’d never heard of him – but he’s quite a discovery… I bought an edition which collected three of his novels together – Read More
Two novels, two different Millers…
This post was combined and republished into my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. Snowdrops by A D Miller I bought this debut novel at the beginning of the year. It’s had a lot of interest even before it was Booker longlisted. Trying to ignore the hype, I dove in. It’s a tale of Read More
Peirene #3 – Train of thought …
Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius translated by Jamie Bulloch This is the third title from Peirene Press who launched this year publishing thought-provoking short novels of contemporary European literature in luxury paperback editions. Read my thoughts about their first two books here. Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman, appears rather Read More
Everybody here has a secret…
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious This was our book group choice for October, and what a good one it was, for everyone who finished reading the book loved it. This is the book that set the benchmark for every soap opera and drama of small town America that followed, and it’s almost shocking to find Read More
Ever Decreasing Circles
Pastors and Masters by Ivy Compton Burnett I won this book from Librarything in their Early Pastors and Masters by Ivy Compton-Burnett Reviewers draw, and it’s a lovely little thing. Hesperus Press is another publisher whose raison d’être is bringing back neglected works into print and their list sounds very interesting (Pushkin, Flaubert and Charles Read More
Reading the Canongate Myths – Vol 2
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood Penelope was the wife of Odysseus and cousin of Helen – both were to affect her life profoundly. Although Penelope’s was a happy marriage, when Helen was engaged in all those shenanigans that precipitated the Trojan War, Odysseus abandoned Penelope and rushed to Helen’s aid, and then took twenty years Read More
The Truman Show meets Dickensian melodrama
Pastworld by Ian Beck Welcome to Pastworld. Imagine that London has been reinvented as a theme park; that Dickensian London has been recreated in every detail. Rich tourists undergo immersion training, get costumed and are then brought in by airship to become ‘gawkers’ in this new, old world. Caleb, son of Lucius Brown, one of Read More
A book with mischievious intent, that doesn’t entirely live up to its promise
Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith If you look at all the reviews, you’ll see that this monster mash-up of the beloved novel has totally split opinions of those who have read it. I’ll tell you mine after a bit of explanation. Zombies have been plaguing the English countryside for Read More
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Written as an intimate diary in letter form to an unknown addressee, this novel chronicles the first year in High School of Charlie. Charlie has a tendency to be rather passive, introspective, and prone to burst into tears; well – his best friend has recently committed suicide! Though quiet, Charlie is clever which is recognised Read More
The Pianist’s Hands by Eugenio Fuentes
This is a crime novel with a difference – where the crime itself, or rather the investigation, doesn’t play much of a part. Instead it’s all about getting under the skin of the main characters, finding out all their foibles and weak points, until the murderer’s identity can be divined. It starts out telling us Read More
The Pets by Bragi Olafsson
Translated by Janice Balfour Last year I read some Halldor Laxness, and found the Icelandic humour distinctly hard to get. This contemporary novel by Bragi Olafsson (formerly in the Sugarcubes with Björk) was much less oblique, but despite its relative brevity took some time to get going. When it did though, it became the stuff Read More
