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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...

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 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...

Nov 24, 20222 min read

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 8, 20222 min read

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 6, 20222 min read

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, 20222 min read

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 7, 20222 min read

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, 20221 min read

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, 20222 min read

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, 20223 min read

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, 20222 min read

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, 20222 min read

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, 20223 min read

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...

Aug 2, 20222 min read

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, 20222 min read

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...

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