Spring by Ali Smith
It is May, still spring, I‘m sure, and I am ready to discuss the third instalment of Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet. This week, we have...
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- May 11
- 3 min
Pew by Catherine Lacey
“The reason churches have so many doors is that people tend to leave churches in groups, in a hurry. It seems people have a lot of...
- May 2
- 3 min
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Set on a thousand acres of land is the Cook family’s farm, sternly ruled by patriarch Larry who teaches his daughters and their husbands...
- Apr 20
- 3 min
O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
As a chronic blurb avoider I go into many a book blindly. This is true for Elspeth Barker’s O Caledonia, a 1991 novel I haven’t seen...
- Mar 22
- 4 min
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
"First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they've already given me that much: the worst part of the job was up...
- Mar 6
- 3 min
Winter by Ali Smith
The seasons have changed, from Ali Smith’s Autumn but we are still in contemporary Britain and therefore still in political turmoil. Four...
- Feb 23
- 3 min
Ruth & Pen by Emilie Pine
Dublin, October 7, 2019. Two women wake up to a new day in the old city. Ruth and Pen do not know each other, they are at vastly...
- Feb 17
- 8 min
A Month of Crime Reading
I spent this November deep in the world of crime novels. I read cosy crime mysteries, expansive thrillers, there was even some...
- Feb 7
- 2 min
Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey
Maggie is 29 years old, working on a PhD she is not actually all that interested in, and now about to be divorced – after only 608 days...
- Dec 20, 2022
- 2 min
The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir
At nine years old, Sylvie meets her one great love at school in Paris: her best friend Andrée. The two girls could hardly be more...
- Nov 24, 2022
- 2 min
Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko
Prepare for the vaguest of reviews - but the secrets of this book cannot be given away. It’s been a few weeks since I have finished...
- Nov 22, 2022
- 3 min
Stoner by John Williams
There are some books that just seem to split humanity into two camps – and Stoner by John Williams is certainly one of them. Reading this...
- Nov 15, 2022
- 2 min
Foster by Claire Keegan
Perhaps my favourite author discovery of the year is Claire Keegan. I read her Booker Prize shortlisted novel Small Things Like These in...
- Nov 8, 2022
- 2 min
Autumn by Ali Smith
‘It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.’ I love a good opening line. And how true, describing 2016, the year of chaos and...
- Nov 7, 2022
- 1 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #11: Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
Unrest is spreading over Jidada. The Old Horse has fallen, the revolutionary government is replaced by a new self-proclaimed liberation...
- Nov 6, 2022
- 2 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #12: Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
Kiara is seventeen and desperately trying to pay the rent that has been increased yet again. After her father’s death and with her mother...
- Nov 1, 2022
- 2 min
The Booker Prize 2022 # 10: Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
Lia’s carefully calibrated life is about to be turned upside down yet again. The cancer she battled years ago is back. And spreading....
- Oct 12, 2022
- 2 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #9: After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
At the beginning was Sappho, who spoke of her lovers and for sapphic women centuries on. Women – artists, writers, dancers, actresses –...
- Oct 11, 2022
- 2 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #8: Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
Joe is watching time pass by, measuring his days by Noony, the train that comes past his window once a day. He is all alone in his house,...
- Oct 7, 2022
- 2 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #7: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
Maali Almeida is dead and has just woken up in the afterlife, though he does not know yet. For how he still believes he is having a weird...
- Oct 6, 2022
- 1 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #6: The Trees by Percival Everett
Money, Mississippi does not hold what its name promises but is home to an interesting set of characters who wake up to a series of brutal...
- Oct 4, 2022
- 2 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #5: Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
The author GMB, interested in psychiatry and one prolific 1960s psychiatrist in particular, is trusted with a set of notebooks kept by...
- Sep 28, 2022
- 3 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #4: The Colony by Audrey Magee
Two men make their way to a tiny Irish island. On uncertain and uneasily, the other more self-assured. Mr Lloyd crosses the sea from...
- Sep 27, 2022
- 2 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #3: Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
Karen Joy Fowler’s new book is but isn’t the story of John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln. Is but isn’t because it tells the...
- Sep 26, 2022
- 2 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #2: Trust by Hernan Diaz
What do a novel, an unfinished autobiography, the manuscript for a ghost-written memoir, and a diary have in common? They are all parts...
- Sep 21, 2022
- 3 min
The Booker Prize 2022 #1: Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
I’m starting my series of posts about this year’s Booker Prize longlist with a double review as I squeezed in Elizabeth Strout’s My Name...
- Sep 19, 2022
- 3 min
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
I finally listened to everyone telling me this was their favourite book and read The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Does this...
- Sep 1, 2022
- 2 min
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
In For Who the Bells Tolls Hemingway takes us back to another European war: this time the Spanish Civil War. His hero, the American...
- Aug 9, 2022
- 2 min
This is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is one of my favourite discoveries of recent years. This is Your Mind on Plants is his most recent book, consisting of...
- Aug 2, 2022
- 2 min
Without Warning & Only Sometimes by Kit de Waal
Without Warning & Only Sometimes author Kit de Waal’s childhood memoir. She up with an Irish mother who, as a Jehovah’s witness forbid...
- Jul 5, 2022
- 2 min
The Echo Chamber by John Boyne
BBC talk show host George Beverly and his family live a comfortable life in their London home – until the trolls and woke people on...
- Jun 28, 2022
- 1 min
When Panic Attacks by Dr Áine Tubridy
Panic attacks affect millions of people and can be debilitating. Depending on the severity of the disorder, and the frequency of the...
- Jun 21, 2022
- 2 min
Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal by Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin
Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal is a conversation between linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky and economist Robert Pollin...
- Jun 14, 2022
- 3 min
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Our narrator first met Tracey when they were young girls nervously waiting for their first dance class to start. Their friendship did not...
- Jun 8, 2022
- 2 min
Dottie by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Dottie Badoura Fatma Balfour is seventeen years old and has just become the head of her small family in London. Her mother has just died,...
- May 24, 2022
- 2 min
Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton
Why Marx Was Right is Terry Eagleton’s attempt at making Karl Marx’s theory accessible to all and to provide socialists with some...
- May 12, 2022
- 2 min
How to Live: A Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell
How to live? Read a lot, forget most of what you’ve read, and be slow-witted! How do you make peace with the fact of death? How do you...
- Apr 26, 2022
- 2 min
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
The Trojan War has left destruction in its wake. The city is defeated, its men have been murdered, and the women enslaved. But the Greek...
- Apr 19, 2022
- 3 min
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
“Two years before leaving home my father said to my mother that I was very ugly,” is the brutal opening line of Elena Ferrante’s most...
- Apr 12, 2022
- 5 min
If This Is a Man by Primo Levi
What can you say about a work such as this? It has been several weeks now since I read it, and I still feel lost for words. If This Is a...
- Mar 23, 2022
- 2 min
Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller
First developed in the 1940s, attachment theory originally dealt with the relationship between infants and their caregivers and is one of...
- Mar 17, 2022
- 3 min
Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Uncle Aziz comes by the house every year. His visits are always a cause for excitement. The wealthy merchant and his men are not only...
- Mar 2, 2022
- 3 min
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Holden Caulfield has been expelled from his prep-school. Again. Having failed all subjects but English he now has to pack his bags and go...
- Feb 15, 2022
- 2 min
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
It is hot in this 1960s Harlem summer where we meet Ray Carney for the first time. A respectable furniture salesman, Carney is well-liked...
- Feb 8, 2022
- 2 min
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
It is a bitter cold winter in Ireland, 1985. We are in a small town, among good Christian citizens and meet Bill Furlong, the coal...
- Feb 2, 2022
- 2 min
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Frances and Bobbi are students at Trinity College, Dublin. They used to be lovers, now they are best friends who perform poetry together....
- Jan 25, 2022
- 2 min
Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
L’Isle des Cheavliers is a tropical paradise where the rich American candy manufacturer Valerian Street has chosen to retire with his...
- Jan 18, 2022
- 2 min
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal have been best friends since their adventures during World War II, though none of their friends and family...
- Jan 11, 2022
- 3 min
My Top Reads of 2021
Here are the top 5 fiction and non-fiction books out of the 73 I’ve read this year. Fiction: Beloved by Toni Morrison Beloved is a...
- Jan 4, 2022
- 2 min
Milkman by Anna Burns
In an unnamed city, where two communities live in conflict with each other, where there is a right and a wrong kind of butter, just as...
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