Reviews of Books
Posted in Recommended, Serious on Oct 16th, 2009
My book club chose this book because the author is Western Australian and it was reviewed as being one of the ‘must reads’. It had a lovely visual quality and the writing was simple, but eloquent. Here is the publisher’s blurb … ‘Photography has without doubt made her a seer; she is a woman of [...]
Posted in Fiction - Light, Recommended on Oct 14th, 2009
I bought this book based on a few blog entries. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting. It was a fun, light and entertaining novel, but just a bit strange. This novel is about imagination and group flights of imagination and family ties. It has a definite upper-middle class English feel to it. This novel [...]
Posted in Recommended, Serious on Sep 29th, 2009
This is an enormous novel – difficult to read in bed. It is on the Man Booker 2009 Short List. This is partly why I wanted to read it, but mostly I was interested in the story. Here’s the synopsis from the publisher … Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2009 ‘Lock Cromwell in a [...]
Posted in Fiction - Light, Recommended on Sep 9th, 2009
My reason for selecting this book is slightly odd. I wanted to buy three books from Persephone and so selected this as my third because I had recently watched an adaptation of Ballet Shoes. That being said, I enjoyed this novel. She has a wonderful way of getting inside peoples’ heads. Here is what Persephone [...]
Posted in Recommended, Serious on Sep 7th, 2009
A few years ago I saw an adaptation of Fingersmith and I really like it. I always meant to read it and the other day I found it at the library. There is quite a complicated plot and if I write too much I will spoil the story. This is what they say at the [...]
Posted in Fiction - Light, Recommended on Aug 27th, 2009
I loved this book. It was definitely of its time and is probably a bit dated now. Here is what Amazon.co.uk has to say about it … Monica Dickens’s first book, published in 1940, could easily have been called Mariana – an Englishwoman. For that is what it is: the story of a young English [...]
Posted in Fiction - Light, Recommended on Aug 18th, 2009
I haven’t read any of Hodgson Burnett’s work before – not even The Secret Garden. I was quite keen to read this one, but found it quite difficult to find. In the end I bought it from Persephone - it’s a beautiful edition (not the one shown above, but one of their standard grey covers) with [...]
Posted in Recommended, Serious on Aug 15th, 2009
I’ve only read one Tim Winton novel The Ridersand I hated it. However, my mum passed this one onto me and my book club were keen to read it, so I took a deep breath (no pun intended – or maybe just a little) and read it. Here’s the blurb … When paramedic Bruce Pike [...]
Posted in Recommended, Serious on Aug 6th, 2009
A S Byatt is one of my favourite authors. I loved Possession and the quartet starting with The Virgin in the Garden. They’re so rich and finely detailed. Full of interesting people whose fate I care about. I read The Children’s Booktwice because it was dense. Packed full of information about all sorts of interesting [...]
Posted in Fiction - Light, Recommended on Jul 26th, 2009
There is something quite comforting about reading Janet Evanovich. The Stephanie Plum novels are all the same – there will be explosions, there will be sexual tension between Stephanie and Ranger or Stephanie and Morelli or maybe both, there will be incredibly incompetent bounty hunter episodes. Having said that, there also hilarious – definitely a [...]