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...
top of page
literature book reviews book recommendations reading lists
WELCOME TO MY BOOKSHELF
Search
Aug 31, 20234 min read
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, 20234 min read
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...
Jul 25, 20232 min read
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, 20233 min read
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, 20232 min read
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, 20233 min read
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, 20236 min read
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, 20234 min read
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, 20233 min read
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, 20233 min read
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, 20233 min read
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, 20233 min read
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, 20233 min read
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, 20233 min read
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, 20234 min read
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, 20233 min read
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, 20233 min read
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, 20238 min read
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, 20232 min read
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...
bottom of page