Tag Archives: Book Review
January 18, 2014 · 6:47 pm
‘Burial Rites’ by Hannah Kent is a novel based on the true story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir who was convicted of murder and was the last woman to be executed in Iceland in 1830 at the age of 33. Sentenced to death along with Fridrik Sigurdsson and Sigrídur Sigga Gudmundsdóttir for killing Natan Ketilsson and his neighbour, Agnes is sent to live with District Officer Jón Jónsson, his wife Margrét and their daughters Steina and Lauga while she awaits execution. However, it is gradually revealed that her story is more complex than the original version of events presented in court. Continue reading →
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Tagged as Agnes Magnusdottir, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Burial Rites, Crime, Fiction, Hannah Kent, Historical, Iceland, Literature, Reviews
January 12, 2014 · 4:56 pm
‘The Thirteenth Tale’ by Diane Setterfield tells the story of Vida Winter, a successful author who commissions Margaret Lea, the reclusive daughter of a bookshop owner, to write her biography. Having previously avoided revealing any true details about her past to other interviewers, Vida is now seriously ill and wants to tell the real story of her childhood at Angelfield when she was known as Adeline March before she dies.
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January 5, 2014 · 5:31 pm
I love ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt which is one of my all-time favourite books and also really enjoyed ‘The Little Friend’ so one of the books I had been looking forward to reading the most is her new novel ‘The Goldfinch’ which I recently received as a Christmas present. Given that Tartt only publishes novels approximately once a decade, I expect nothing less than Great Things from her work. In other words, I can’t remember the last time I had such high expectations for a book.
Continue reading →
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Tagged as Art, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Donna Tartt, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature, New York, Novels, Reading, Reviews, The Goldfinch
January 2, 2014 · 8:30 pm
‘The Rosie Project’ by Graeme Simsion is a quirky and endearing story about Don Tillman, a genetics professor with autism who embarks on The Wife Project in an attempt to meet his ideal life partner through a detailed questionnaire. Instead, he meets Rosie Jarman who fits none of his very specific criteria – she smokes, drinks alcohol, doesn’t eat meat and is late for everything. However, Rosie’s quest to uncover the identity of her biological father leads Don on an eventful journey of his own.
I was lucky enough to have the chance to interview Graeme Simsion about the process of writing ‘The Rosie Project’ and the inspiration behind the story: Continue reading →
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Tagged as Asperger Syndrome, Australia, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, Graeme Simsion, Interview, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Romance, The Rosie Project
December 30, 2013 · 3:00 pm
I did this survey last year so here it is again….
1. Best Book You Read In 2013? (You can break it down by genre if you want) This is hard… in terms of fiction, highlights definitely include ‘A Tale for the Time Being‘ by Ruth Ozeki, ‘Life After Life‘ by Kate Atkinson and ‘Red Joan‘ by Jennie Rooney. The best non-fiction book was probably ‘Quiet‘ by Susan Cain. I don’t give books star ratings in my reviews so it is difficult to judge and compare a whole year’s worth of reading.
2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t? I was not so much disappointed but just rather perplexed by ‘The Orphan Master’s Son‘ by Adam Johnson. I was intrigued by the story’s setting in North Korea but it didn’t really grab me as much as I thought it would. Continue reading →
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Tagged as 2013, 2014, Blog, Blogging, Blogs, Book, Book Blogs, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, Literature, Non fiction, Reading, Survey
December 27, 2013 · 1:28 pm
Whether or not it was her way of sticking two fingers up at her critics, I think it was pretty clever of J. K. Rowling to publish ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith after receiving mixed reviews for ‘The Casual Vacancy’ last year. Interestingly, the feedback for ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ was unanimously positive from both critics and readers before the identity of the real author was revealed. But does it live up to the hype? Continue reading →
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Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Crime, Fiction, J. K. Rowling, London, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo's Calling
December 20, 2013 · 7:34 pm
I was fascinated by the original premise of ‘Red Joan’ by Jennie Rooney which is based on the true story of Melita Norwood who was famously unmasked as the KGB’s longest serving British spy at the age of eighty-seven in 1999. In Rooney’s fictionalised version of events, Joan Stanley, an eighty-five year old woman living in the suburbs of south east London, receives a visit from two British intelligence operatives who have come to question her about her past after so many decades of silence. The story is cleverly told through a series of flashbacks as the links between Joan’s past and present are gradually revealed.
Continue reading →
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Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Communism, Fiction, Historical, Jennie Rooney, Novels, Reading, Red Joan, Russia, Spies, Thriller, World War Two
December 14, 2013 · 4:01 pm
J. K. Rowling’s first novel for adults, ‘The Casual Vacancy’, opens with the sudden death of Barry Fairweather, a popular local parish councillor. This event sends shockwaves through the small town of Pagford and the upcoming election sharply divides the community, particularly with regard to the future of a nearby council estate known as The Fields.
Continue reading →
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Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, Novels, Reading, Reviews, The Casual Vacancy, The Cuckoo's Calling
December 6, 2013 · 8:22 pm
When I first started this blog, I reviewed more or less everything I read in the order that I read them. However, I am no longer quite so organised. I still review the majority of the books I read but this year, I read quite a few other books which I didn’t write about on my blog for the following reasons: Continue reading →
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Tagged as 2013, Blog, Blogging, Blogs, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, Literature, Maggie O'Farrell, Novels, Reading, Reviews
November 30, 2013 · 6:44 pm
‘The Various Haunts of Men’ by Susan Hill is the first book in the Simon Serrailler series of crime novels. A series of mysterious disappearances on the Hill near the small cathedral town of Lafferton catches the attention of Detective Sergeant Freya Graffham. A middle-aged woman, a man, a young girl and a dog have all gone missing at the same spot. But what exactly happened to them all and why?
Continue reading →
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Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Crime, Fiction, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Simon Serrailler, Susan Hill, The Various Haunts of Men
November 23, 2013 · 6:00 pm
Once again, I was lucky enough to win another book to review from the Pot Luck draw for Waterstones cardholders a few weeks ago. This time, it was ‘Crossing to Safety’ by Wallace Stegner which was first published in 1987 a few years before his death and has recently been reprinted by Penguin Classics featuring an introduction by Jane Smiley. You can read my brief review here on the Waterstones website under the name Clare90. Continue reading →
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Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Crossing to Safety, Fiction, Literature, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Wallace Stegner, Wisconsin
November 16, 2013 · 9:43 pm
I randomly picked ‘Canada’ by Richard Ford off the shelf in a shop not long after it was first published last year and turned to the first page. I was immediately struck by the first two sentences: “First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later.” As opening lines go, I found those to be pretty memorable and also very intriguing. Continue reading →
November 10, 2013 · 6:20 pm
Even though I love music, I rarely seek out autobiographies or biographies about musicians. In fact, I don’t think I have read any books even vaguely related to music since starting this blog over eighteen months ago. However, I love love LOVE Tracey Thorn and was very excited to get hold of a copy of her memoir ‘Bedsit Disco Queen: How I grew up and tried to be a popstar’ at the library this week. If her writing was half as eloquent and understated as her songwriting, then I knew I would be in for a treat. Continue reading →
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Tagged as Autobiography, Bedsit Disco Queen, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Everything But The Girl, Marine Girls, Memoir, Memoirs, Music, Non fiction, Reading, Reviews, Tracey Thorn
November 2, 2013 · 4:53 pm
‘Sweet Tooth’ by Ian McEwan tells the story of a young woman called Serena Frome (rhymes with plume) who is recruited by MI5 after she finishes studying at Cambridge University in the early 1970s. She is assigned to an operation named Sweet Tooth in which a cultural foundation is set up to offer financial assistance to writers who speak out against communism. However, her romantic relationship with one of the young writers involved in the project, Tom Haley, starts to complicate things. Continue reading →
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Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Cold War, Fiction, Ian McEwan, Literature, MI5, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Spies, Sweet Tooth
October 27, 2013 · 6:38 pm
‘The Panopticon’ by Jenni Fagan tells the story of Anais Hendricks, a fifteen-year-old young offender from Scotland who has spent all of her life in care and is more or less constantly in trouble with the police. After being accused of assaulting a police officer who ends up in a coma, she spends time in the Panopticon, an institution for chronic young offenders which takes its name from Jeremy Bentham’s suggested “circular prison with cells so constructed that the prisoners can be observed at all times”.
Continue reading →
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Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, Jenni Fagan, Novels, Prison, Reading, Reviews, Scotland, The Panopticon
October 23, 2013 · 5:16 pm
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003, ‘Notes on a Scandal’ by Zoe Heller is a tightly-written psychological thriller driven almost entirely by the characters rather than the actual events. The story is told retrospectively from the point of view of Barbara Covett, a History teacher at a North London comprehensive school. Lonely and nearing retirement, she forms a friendship with a new pottery teacher, Sheba Hart. However, Sheba’s affair with one of her fifteen-year-old male pupils has far-reaching consequences for everyone, especially Barbara.
Continue reading →
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Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, Literature, London, Notes on a Scandal, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Thriller, Zoe Heller
October 20, 2013 · 3:21 pm
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1995, ‘The Stone Diaries’ by Carol Shields is a fictional biography of Daisy Goodwill which outlines her life story in ten chapters covering her birth, childhood, marriage, love, motherhood, work, sorrow, ease, illness and death. Born in Canada in 1905, Daisy’s life spans the majority of the twentieth century and is both very ordinary and yet also highly extraordinary. Continue reading →
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Tagged as Biography, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Canada, Carol Shields, Fiction, Literature, Novels, Pulitzer Prize, Reading, Reviews, The Stone Diaries
October 12, 2013 · 3:08 pm
I have finally got round to reading ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette’ by Maria Semple which was the only book shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction that I didn’t manage to read before the winner was announced in June. It tells the story of Bernadette Fox, an award-winning architect who lives in Seattle with her husband, Elgie, who works for Microsoft and their teenage daughter, Bee. For various reasons, Bernadette loathes Seattle and one day, she simply disappears, leaving Bee to compile a series of emails, letters, police reports and other correspondence in order to find her mother. Continue reading →
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Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Epistolary, Fiction, Humour, Maria Semple, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Where'd You Go Bernadette, Women's Prize for Fiction
October 7, 2013 · 5:13 pm
Shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, ‘A Tale for the Time Being’ by Ruth Ozeki tells the story of a diary written a decade ago by a Japanese teenage girl called Nao which is washed up on an island off British Colombia in a Hello Kitty lunchbox after the tsunami in 2011. The diary is discovered by a novelist called Ruth who tries to find out what happened to Nao and her family, including her great-grandmother, Jiko, a Buddhist nun and her great-uncle, Haruki, a kamikaze pilot in the Second World War.
Continue reading →
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Tagged as A Tale for the Time Being, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Booker Prize, Buddhism, Fiction, Japan, Literature, Man Booker Prize, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Ruth Ozeki
October 2, 2013 · 3:12 pm
Even though I have been a book blogger for quite a while now and am generally meant to be on top of all things bookish, I have been very slow at getting round to reading the book that pretty much the entire world (no exaggeration) has been discussing for the last year or so. I got a bit fed up of my mum and my sister going into another room to talk about ‘Gone Girl’ by Gillian Flynn so I thought I had better get round to reading it so that I could join in with the conversation.
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Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Crime, Fiction, Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Thriller
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