Category Archives: Books
December 16, 2012 · 6:21 pm
The Ghost of Neil Diamond
I have received a few emails from unpublished or little-known authors offering me free copies of their novels to review on my blog. The first one was from David Milnes who sent me a copy of his novel ‘The Ghost of Neil Diamond’ about six weeks ago and I also have two more books sent to me by their authors which I will try and get round to reading very very soon! Continue reading →
December 15, 2012 · 2:09 pm
I have got really, really behind with writing up my reviews and I am doing my best to catch up this week before Christmas! I actually read ‘The Paris Wife’ by Paula McClain about three weeks ago. It is a fictional account of Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage to Hadley Richardson told from her point of view after a whirlwind romance and their life together in the 1920s before he found worldwide fame as a writer. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Ernest Hemingway, Fiction, France, Literature, Novels, Paris, Paula McClain, Reading, Reviews, The Paris Wife
December 14, 2012 · 7:34 pm
‘Perfume: The Story of a Murderer’ by Patrick Suskind tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who has no natural odour himself but possesses an unnaturally heightened sense of smell. Abandoned as a child in eighteenth-century Paris, he eventually becomes an apprentice at a parfumerie thanks to his talent for distinguishing between the subtlest collection of odours and creating the most exquisite perfumes. However, his quest for the perfect scent soon leads him down a murderous path. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, France, German Literature, Historical, Horror, Literature, Paris, Patrick Suskind, Perfume, Reading, Reviews
December 7, 2012 · 3:26 pm
So this isn’t exactly poetry in the traditional sense but it may well be true depending on how you look at it. You can see my previous attempts at spine poetry here, here and here.
December 1, 2012 · 7:38 pm
‘Capital’ by John Lanchester is a state-of-the-nation novel which follows the lives of the residents of Pepys Road in London in 2007-2008 just as the financial crisis is beginning to wreak havoc on the world. The characters come from all walks of life: they include a City banker, a Senegalese footballer, an elderly lady who has been diagnosed with a brain tumour, a Pakistani family who own the nearby corner shop and several other characters. They all begin to receive anonymous postcards with the message ‘We Want What You Have’ written on them. Why? Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Capital, Fiction, Financial Crisis, John Lanchester, London, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Sebastian Faulks
November 28, 2012 · 8:41 pm
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992, ‘A Thousand Acres’ by Jane Smiley is essentially the plot of the Shakespeare play ‘King Lear’ set on a farm in Iowa in the 1980s. Approaching old age, Larry Cook decides to hand over ownership of his 1000 acre farm in Zebulon County to his three daughters, Ginny, Rose and Caroline. Caroline, the youngest, objects and is cut out of the will and before long, many other family secrets are revealed. Given the ‘King Lear’ link, I don’t think I will be giving away a great deal by saying that ‘A Thousand Acres’ ends in tragedy. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as A Thousand Acres, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, Iowa, Jane Smiley, King Lear, Literature, Novels, Pulitzer Prize, Reading, Reviews, Shakespeare
November 26, 2012 · 4:21 pm
French Books
Here’s one way of preventing Amazon’s hegemony over book sales: in France, book prices are fixed by law so they cost the same amount whether you buy them online, in a chain shop like Fnac or in a small independent bookshop. When I was living in Paris during my year abroad, the stingy student side of me was a bit miffed that it was impossible to get new books at a discount. On the other hand, it means that there are still a lot of independent bookshops which are managing to stay open (about 400 in Paris) and that can only be a good thing. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Amazon, Book, Bookshops, eBooks, Fiction, France, French Literature, Literature, Non fiction, Paris, Publishing, Reading, Saint-Germain, Shakespeare and Company
November 23, 2012 · 7:38 pm
Source: The Guardian
Whether it’s the Bad Sex award given to the author of the most cringe-worthy sex scene in literature each year or coveted literary prizes such as the Booker and the Pulitzer, book awards attract a lot of attention. They also attract a considerable amount of debate particularly concerning the worthiness of winners. So do we actually need them and what do they really achieve?
Regular followers of this blog will know that I read quite a lot of books which are nominated for the Booker Prize and other similar literary awards. I don’t read these books purely because they are on the shortlist and I certainly wouldn’t rush out and buy the whole lot straight after the announcement. Like most people, I still choose books almost entirely according to personal recommendations and general browsing rather than the number of prestigious awards they have won. However, I am always intrigued by what it is about them that got them recognised and nominated in the first place so I do try and hunt down the ones I think I might enjoy and have heard generally good things about. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Awards, Book Review, Book Reviews, Booker Prize, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature, Man Booker Prize, Novels, Publishing, Pulitzer Prize, Reading
November 17, 2012 · 8:35 pm
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize last year, ‘The Last Hundred Days’ by Patrick McGuinness tells the story of a young British expat living in Romania at the time of the fall of Ceaucescu in 1989. Offered a job at a university, the unnamed narrator soon becomes embroiled in a web of corruption and betrayal. Loosely based on McGuinness’ own experiences, it is a shocking, sometimes brutal account of life under the shadow of a dictator and his rapid downfall. It is a story told with bleak authenticity. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Booker Prize, Communism, Fiction, Literature, Novels, Patrick McGuinness, Reading, Reviews, Romania, The Last Hundred Days, Thriller
November 14, 2012 · 6:54 pm
Having access to new university libraries means that I occasionally visit the fiction section and borrow books to read on the train while I commute (and when I say occasionally, I really mean pretty much every time I go to the library). I have read a lot of Ian McEwan’s more recent work but I haven’t been able to get hold of his earlier works until now. This collection of short stories definitely shows how far McEwan has come since his debut in the mid-1970s with ‘First Love, Last Rites’. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, First Love Last Rites, Horror, Ian McEwan, Literature, Reading, Reviews, Short Stories
November 10, 2012 · 9:17 pm
This is a book igloo created by Colombian artist Miler Lagos. I could quite happily live here… not entirely sure how stable it is though. It would be kind of annoying if you really wanted to read one of the books that forms part of the dome but couldn’t remove it without the whole thing collapsing. Nightmare. Still super cool though.
November 8, 2012 · 2:18 pm
Having read some pretty strange books recently (The Unconsoled and The Unbearable Lightness of Being spring to mind), I really wanted to read something that was based upon some good old-fashioned story-telling and a linear plot. On one hand, I wanted a book that wasn’t too taxing on the brain. On the other hand, I wanted a book that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to read in public on a train. ‘The Sealed Letter’ by Emma Donoghue was just what I needed. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Divorce, Emma Donoghue, Fiction, Literature, Novels, Reading, Reviews, The Sealed Letter, Victorian, Women
November 3, 2012 · 3:16 pm
I have read quite a few of Julian Barnes’ other novels over the last few months and I am a real fan of his work. I think I am now even more in awe of the power of his prose, having finally got hold of a copy of ‘The Sense of an Ending’ and devoured it in a little over two hours. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Booker Prize, Fiction, Julian Barnes, Literature, Novella, Novels, Reading, Reviews, The Sense of an Ending
October 30, 2012 · 9:05 pm
‘The Chemistry of Tears’ by Peter Carey tells the story of Catherine Gehrig, an horologist living in London who had an affair with her boss, Matthew Tindall, for thirteen years until his recent sudden death. In the midst of her grief, she is given the task of rebuilding a mechanical duck and discovers the journals of Henry Brandling, whose story set in the mid nineteenth century is also interwoven alongside Catherine’s journey through grief. Continue reading →
October 25, 2012 · 8:00 pm
My postgraduate course is taking over pretty much my whole life at the moment. I am still finding the time to read non-academic books when I commute but I am getting very behind with writing up my reviews (also in the wrong order as I read this before ‘The Unconsoled’). I actually read ‘The Awakening’ by Kate Chopin during Banned Books Week at the beginning of October but have only just got round to writing this blog post. Hopefully, I will catch up by Christmas…!
‘The Awakening’ tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young Creole woman trapped in an unhappy marriage who is capable of (shock horror) independent thought and marital infidelity. Her modern views on motherhood and femininity even cause her husband, Leonce, to seek medical advice. During a holiday, she meets Robert and falls for him. Inevitably, there are tragic consequences. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Banned Books, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Feminism, Fiction, Kate Chopin, Literature, Novels, Reading, Reviews, The Awakening, Victorian, Women
October 23, 2012 · 9:37 pm
Why did I do a Masters degree? WHY?! Yes, work is getting to me a bit already and it’s still only October. I would be blogging every day if I reviewed all the course books I am reading at the moment but I don’t want to turn this blog into A Little Blog of Political Economy and European Foreign Policy Books and Absolutely Nothing Else. That would be depressing and very very boring.
I think the last time it took me this long to finish a book was when I read ‘The Corrections’ by Jonathan Franzen. However, that was because I found it a slog to get through not because I was particularly busy at the time. During the holidays, I might have been able to read ‘The Unconsoled’ in about three days. Instead, during term time, it has taken more like two and a half weeks. For me, that’s an epically long time to spend on one book. But with ‘The Unconsoled’, I think it was worth reading slowly. Continue reading →
October 16, 2012 · 9:23 pm
So Hilary Mantel has done it again. ‘Bring Up The Bodies’ has been crowned the Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2012. Mantel won the Booker Prize for ‘Wolf Hall’ in 2009, the first part of her trilogy on the life of Thomas Cromwell, so this makes her the first woman and the first British person to win it twice. I’m sure I’m not alone in passing on many congratulations to Mantel for this huge and much deserved achievement. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Booker Prize, Bring Up The Bodies, Fiction, Hilary Mantel, Historical, Literature, Man Booker Prize, Novels, Reading, Wolf Hall
October 15, 2012 · 4:45 pm
After my previous attempts here and here, I am discovering that spine poetry is not only a lot of fun, it is an excellent form of procrastination from the tons of reading I have to do for my Masters degree. The titles of textbooks about political economy are not very inspiring unfortunately but here is my latest effort:
October 11, 2012 · 7:40 pm
I hardly ever read two books or more at the same time but with ‘The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama’ by David Remnick I had to make an exception. It is a beast of a book and I would never have finished it if I hadn’t been reading some fiction alongside it over the last few weeks. As I mentioned in my post about political biographies, almost all books about political figures are extremely weighty tomes which are crammed with more detail than you will ever need to know. ‘The Bridge’ is no different but even though it definitely isn’t aimed at the casual reader, it is still a highly readable account of Barack Obama’s truly extraordinary life and path to the White House. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as American Politics, Barack Obama, Biography, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, David Remnick, Elections, Non fiction, Political Biography, Politics, President, Reading, Reviews
October 7, 2012 · 5:48 pm
I’m a little bit slow when it comes to reading the Man Booker Prize winners and nominees. I haven’t read any of the books on this year’s shortlist yet and ‘Snowdrops’ by A. D. Miller is only the second book on last year’s shortlist that I have read so far. It tells the story of Nick Platt, a British lawyer in his thirties living in Moscow. After meeting Masha who soon becomes his girlfriend, Nick gets involved in a property deal. This being Russia, let’s just say it doesn’t go quite as planned…
Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as A D Miller, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Booker Prize, Crime, Fiction, Literature, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Russia, Snowdrops
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992, ‘A Thousand Acres’ by Jane Smiley is essentially the plot of the Shakespeare play ‘King Lear’ set on a farm in Iowa in the 1980s. Approaching old age, Larry Cook decides to hand over ownership of his 1000 acre farm in Zebulon County to his three daughters, Ginny, Rose and Caroline. Caroline, the youngest, objects and is cut out of the will and before long, many other family secrets are revealed. Given the ‘King Lear’ link, I don’t think I will be giving away a great deal by saying that ‘A Thousand Acres’ ends in tragedy. Continue reading 
My postgraduate course is taking over pretty much my whole life at the moment. I am still finding the time to read non-academic books when I commute but I am getting very behind with writing up my reviews (also in the wrong order as I read this before ‘The Unconsoled’). I actually read ‘The Awakening’ by Kate Chopin during Banned Books Week at the beginning of October but have only just got round to writing this blog post. Hopefully, I will catch up by Christmas…!
A Little Blog of Books 
You must be logged in to post a comment.