WELCOME TO MY BOOKSHELF

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...

“Once upon a time there were two boys who purposefully misremembered things about their father. It made them feel better if ever they...

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...

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...

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...

"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...

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...

‘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...

Unrest is spreading over Jidada. The Old Horse has fallen, the revolutionary government is replaced by a new self-proclaimed liberation...

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

At the beginning was Sappho, who spoke of her lovers and for sapphic women centuries on. Women – artists, writers, dancers, actresses –...

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,...

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...

Our narrator first met Tracey when they were young girls nervously waiting for their first dance class to start. Their friendship did not...

Dottie Badoura Fatma Balfour is seventeen years old and has just become the head of her small family in London. Her mother has just died,...