Booker Prize 2023: Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry
For nine months now, Tom Kettle has got to enjoy the quiet solitude of retirement after ending his career with the garda. From his rented...
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- Nov 22
- 3 min
Booker Prize 2023: All the Little Bird-Hearts by Victoria Lloyd-Barlow
Sunday has quiet day and currently eats only white foods. She cannot drink anything that is not fizzy and feels best burying her hands in...
- Nov 21
- 2 min
Booker Prize 2023: The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
Penang, 1921. Lesley and Robert Hamlyn are expecting an important visitor. “Willie” Somerset Maugham, who has been travelling through...
- Nov 19
- 2 min
Booker Prize 2023 - A Spell of Good Things by Ayòbámi Adébáyò
Nigeria – a country marked by extreme poverty and breath-taking wealth – is home to Eniola and Wúràolá, the two protagonists of Ayọ̀bámi...
- Nov 16
- 2 min
Booker 2023: Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
Now that Gopi’s mother has died, it is up to her and her sisters to try and keep their father from falling apart. The only thing he still...
- Nov 14
- 2 min
Booker Prize 2023: Pearl by Siân Hughes
For some reason I expected not to enjoy this novel. Based on some blurb or review, I’d saved it in a similar category to Study for...
- Nov 13
- 3 min
Booker Prize 2023: How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney
In the fictional town of Emory, Eoin takes a walk with his 13 year old son Jamie who can’t stop talking for a second, filled with...
- Nov 7
- 2 min
Booker Prize 2023 - Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
A young woman moves to an unnamed Northern country to stay with her older brother as a housekeeper. Here she faces not only the strange...
- Nov 6
- 4 min
Booker Prize 2023 - Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
I finished Prophet Song by Paul Lynch a few weeks ago, but I could not sit down and write up my thoughts about this novel right away,...
- Oct 30
- 2 min
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan
“Elegance is saying just enough. And I do believe that the reader completes the story.” If that is true, Claire Keegan has to be the most...
- Oct 17
- 3 min
Booker Prize 2023 - The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Rarely do I sit down to type up my review with no idea how to begin. But first things first: I loved The Bee Sting. There is so much...
- Oct 12
- 3 min
Booker Prize 2023 - This Other Eden by Paul Harding
I am sad to report that this was quite a disappointing read for me. Not because it was bad but I had such high expectations and it just...
- Sep 28
- 3 min
Booker Prize 2023 - If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
What are you? That’s the question you are asked by everyone from a young age. Because to a society that is built on a clear hierarchy of...
- Sep 14
- 3 min
Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
As Lilith Iyapo wakes up she knows this was not just a short nap, or even a full-night’s sleep. This was the birth-like experience she...
- Sep 7
- 3 min
When we were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
Christopher Banks’ life changes over night when shortly after his father’s disappearance his mother goes missing, too. In early twentieth...
- Sep 5
- 4 min
Summer by Ali Smith
I didn’t get around to starting the final book in Ali Smith’s quartet, Summer, until that season had almost come to an end. During these...
- Aug 31
- 4 min
Love by Toni Morrison
May, Christine, Heed, Junior and L – five women bound together by their obsession with one man. Bill Cosey was the owner of the famous...
- Aug 23
- 4 min
Booker Prize 2023 - In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
Leigh grows up in Rotterdam, at 22 feet below sea level, and develops a fascination with the ocean from an early age. When she swims, she...
- Aug 3
- 3 min
Sibir von Sabrina Janesch
English version below 1945. Der zehnjährige Josef Ambacher und seine Familie steigen in einen Zug und treten die Reise in eine ungewisse...
- Jul 25
- 2 min
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman
We are in the near future. The euro has, for reasons of simplicity, the same value it had in 2022, but everything else is exactly as it...
- Jul 18
- 3 min
Tiepolo Blue by James Cahill
James Cahill’s debut novel Tiepolo Blue enjoyed quite a bit of excitement before its release. I picked it up after listening to a podcast...
- Jul 4
- 2 min
Antarctica by Claire Keegan
“She thought of Antarctica, the snow and ice and the bodies of dead explorers. Then she thought of hell, and then eternity.” Just before...
- Jun 29
- 3 min
The Colour Purple by Alice Walker
Alice Walker’s modern classic The Color Purple portrays the lives and struggles of African American women in the last century, marked by...
- Jun 13
- 6 min
Echtzeitalter von Tonio Schachinger
English version below Till Kokorda ist fehl am Platz. Das elitäre, private Halbinternat, das er besucht, ist voll von Kinder, die mehr...
- Jun 8
- 4 min
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar is one of those books that has been sitting on my shelves for ages, that I have always wanted to have read but never ended...
- Jun 6
- 3 min
Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
“Once upon a time there were two boys who purposefully misremembered things about their father. It made them feel better if ever they...
- Jun 1
- 3 min
The Visibility Trap: Sexism, Surveillance and Social Media by Mary McGill
Whether we like it or not, social media has become an integral part of our daily lives and social interactions. The technologies have...
- May 23
- 3 min
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...
- 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...
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