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...
top of page
literature book reviews book recommendations reading lists
WELCOME TO MY BOOKSHELF
Search
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...
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 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...
Dec 20, 20222 min read
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 22, 20223 min read
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 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...
Oct 11, 20222 min read
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, 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...
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...
Jun 14, 20223 min read
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...
bottom of page