WELCOME TO MY BOOKSHELF

English version below Till Kokorda ist fehl am Platz. Das elitäre, private Halbinternat, das er besucht, ist voll von Kinder, die mehr...

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...

“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...

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...

"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...

The seasons have changed, from Ali Smith’s Autumn but we are still in contemporary Britain and therefore still in political turmoil. Four...

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...

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...

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...

‘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...

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...

Lia’s carefully calibrated life is about to be turned upside down yet again. The cancer she battled years ago is back. And spreading....

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...

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...

The author GMB, interested in psychiatry and one prolific 1960s psychiatrist in particular, is trusted with a set of notebooks kept by...

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...

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...

What do a novel, an unfinished autobiography, the manuscript for a ghost-written memoir, and a diary have in common? They are all parts...

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...

Without Warning & Only Sometimes author Kit de Waal’s childhood memoir. She up with an Irish mother who, as a Jehovah’s witness forbid...