Tag Archives: Fiction
December 6, 2015 · 5:18 pm
Last week, I attended another bloggers event at the Groucho Club in London to celebrate the work of classic crime writers Margery Allingham and Eric Ambler with short talks delivered by Barry Pike, a founder and Chairman of the Margery Allingham Society, and Simon Brett, a crime writer and Ambler expert. I developed an interest in classic crime fiction after reading Martin Edwards’ compendium of the genre The Golden Age of Murder last summer which outlined the lives and works of key members of the Detection Club in the early 20th century including Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Anthony Berkeley among others. I was therefore very keen to learn more about two other crime writers whose names were familiar to me but whose novels I had never read before.
Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Crime, Crime Fiction, Eric Ambler, Events, Fiction, Literature, London, Margery Allingham, Mystery, Novels, Reading, Thriller
November 29, 2015 · 7:35 pm
Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein, ‘Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay’ is the third volume of Elena Ferrante’s series of Neapolitan Novels following My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name. The book opens with Elena and Lila aged in their sixties coming across the body of their childhood friend Gigliola in a church flower bed. Lila doesn’t want Elena to write an autobiographical novel about their friendship causing Elena to reflect on their early adulthood towards the end of the 1960s. Elena is engaged to be married to Pietro, a professor she met at university, and has recently published her first novel which has caused something of a stir amongst critics. Meanwhile, having left Nino, Lila is living with Enzo and working in Bruno Soccava’s sausage factory whilst bringing up her son Gennaro. Nevertheless, they remain bound to each other through their friendship and rivalry. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Elena Ferrante, Fiction, Italian Literature, Italy, Literature, Naples, Novels, Reading, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Translated Fiction, Translation
November 22, 2015 · 6:25 pm
Longlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, ‘Did You Ever Have a Family’ by Bill Clegg opens with an explosion caused by a gas leak at June Reid’s house on the morning of her daughter’s wedding. The resulting fire destroys the whole house and kills June’s boyfriend Luke, ex-husband Adam, daughter Lolly, and Lolly’s fiancé William. June is the sole survivor and in the wake of the tragedy, she drives across the country to Washington. During her journey, details about the lives of the characters involved and the cause of the fire begin to emerge. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Bill Clegg, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Booker Prize, Connecticut, Did You Ever Have a Family, Fiction, Literature, Man Booker Prize, Man Booker Prize 2015, Novels, Reading, Reviews
November 15, 2015 · 7:33 pm
Yesterday, I went to a special bloggers reception for the Young Writer of the Year Award at the Groucho Club in London. Sponsored by the Sunday Times and literary agency Peters Fraser & Dunlop, the prize recognises the best literary work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by a British or Irish writer aged 35 and under, with £5,000 awarded to the winner for outstanding literary merit.
Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Ben Fergusson, Book, Book Awards, Fiction, Literature, Poetry, Reading, Sara Taylor, Sarah Howe, Sunjeev Sahota, Young Writer Award, Young Writer of the Year 2015
November 8, 2015 · 5:56 pm
Translated from the French by Frank Wynne, ‘The Great Swindle’ is something of a departure for Pierre Lemaitre from his crime fiction series of novels featuring detective Camille Verhoeven. Originally titled ‘Au-revoir là-haut’, it won the Prix Goncourt in 2013 which is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in France. In the final days of the First World War, Lieutenant Henri d’Aulnay-Pradelle secretly shoots two of his own men in the back to make other troops believe they were killed by the enemy and provoke a final attack on the Germans, thus establishing his reputation as a war hero. However, Albert Maillard and Édouard Péricourt have witnessed his crime and are gravely injured when Aulnay-Pradelle attempts to kill them too. After the armistice, Édouard assumes the identity of another dead soldier and embarks on an elaborate money-making scheme with Albert. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, First World War, France, French Literature, Paris, Pierre Lemaitre, Reading, The Great Swindle, Translated Fiction, Translation, World War One
October 29, 2015 · 4:09 pm
I originally intended to write a blog post about ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ by Ken Kesey during Banned Books Week (27th September – 3rd October). However, I fell a bit behind with my reviewing around that time and while it’s important to have these events to spread awareness, reading banned books needn’t be restricted to just one week of the year. First published in 1962 followed by an equally famous film adaptation in 1975 starring Jack Nicholson, the story is set in a psychiatric hospital in Oregon and follows the lives of the patients who live under the controlled regime of Nurse Ratched. However, the arrival of a new patient, Randle McMurphy, who faked insanity to serve his prison sentence in what he believed would be more comfortable surroundings, soon changes everything.
Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Banned Books, Banned Books Week, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Classic Literature, Fiction, Ken Kesey, Literature, Mental Health, Novels, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Reading, Reviews
October 23, 2015 · 2:29 pm
This week, I was lucky enough to get a place at a special launch event for ‘Career of Evil’, the third book in the crime fiction series by J. K. Rowling written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. I really enjoyed The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm and was very keen to read the latest instalment of Cormoran Strike’s adventures.
To celebrate the launch, the publishers of ‘Career of Evil’ teamed up with Time Run to organise a special crime thriller version of a live gaming experience where teams need to solve clues and puzzles to “escape” the room as quickly as possible. Based in Hackney, it’s been described by the Metro as “immersive theatre meets Crystal Maze but better”. This definitely wasn’t going to be a typical book launch… Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Career of Evil, Cormoran Strike, Crime, Crime Fiction, Events, Fiction, J. K. Rowling, London, Reading, Robert Galbraith, Time Run
October 14, 2015 · 11:52 am
While the Man Booker Prize is one of the most high-profile literary awards in the world (and congratulations to Marlon James for last night’s win by the way), the alternative Not the Booker prize run by the Guardian’s books website has also been growing in popularity over the past few years. ‘Things We Have in Common’ by Tasha Kavanagh was featured on this year’s Not the Booker shortlist and was narrowly pipped to the post by Kirstin Innes’ novel ‘Fishnet’ which won the overall prize on Monday. ‘Things We Have in Common’ is narrated by Yasmin Laksaris, an overweight half-Turkish teenager who becomes obsessed with Alice Taylor, one of the most popular girls at school. Yasmin spots a man watching Alice outside school and when she goes missing, Yasmin is convinced she already knows who has taken her. Continue reading →
October 4, 2015 · 7:41 pm
Having read some slightly silly thrillers recently in the form of I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes, I thought it was time to read one of the very first “sensation” books of the mystery genre. Originally published in serial form between 1859 and 1860, ‘The Woman in White’ is Wilkie Collins’ most famous novel and also happens to be a book which has been on my reading list for a very long time. It opens with Walter Hartwright encountering a mysterious woman dressed all in white near Hampstead Heath. He is later hired to tutor Laura Fairlie and her half-sister Marian Halcombe in watercolour painting at Limmeridge House in Cumberland. Walter falls in love with Laura but she is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde. Although Walter learns that the woman in white is Anne Catherick, a local woman who has escaped from an asylum, he notices that Laura bears a striking resemblance to her. After their marriage, Sir Percival and Laura return to live in Blackwater accompanied by Glyde’s friend Count Fosco, one of the most formidable villains in literature who concocts a cunning plan to help Sir Percival get his hands on Laura’s money. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Classic Literature, Fiction, Literature, Novels, Reading, Reviews, The Woman in White, Victorian, Wilkie Collins
September 20, 2015 · 6:33 pm
‘I Am Pilgrim’ by Terry Hayes opens with an elite intelligence agent codenamed Pilgrim being brought out of retirement to investigate the brutal murder of a woman in the rundown Eastside Inn in New York whose identifying features have all been dissolved with acid. Meanwhile, Pilgrim is also attempting to track down a Saudi Arabian doctor known as the Saracen who was radicalised after his father was publicly beheaded and is seeking revenge by unleashing a deadlier version of smallpox on the United States. It later transpires that the two investigations are closely linked. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Crime, Fiction, I Am Pilgrim, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Spies, Terry Hayes, Thriller
August 28, 2015 · 1:54 pm
Longlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, ‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara has been talked about as one of the novels of the year, if not the decade. On Wednesday night, Yanagihara appeared at Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London in conversation with Cathy Rentzenbrink, the Associate Editor of The Bookseller, to talk about her astonishing second novel.
Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as A Little Life, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Events, Fiction, Foyles, Hanya Yanagihara, Literary Awards, Literature, Man Booker Prize, Man Booker Prize 2015, New York, Reviews
August 23, 2015 · 6:18 pm
I
blogged about Jon Ronson’s talk at the Hay Festival earlier this year which was about his latest book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. I read it a couple of weeks after attending the Festival and it is by far the most terrifying book I’ve read this year. Shame is one of the most powerful yet least talked-about human emotions and Ronson examines the dark consequences of shaming people on social media, usually after they have said or done something politically incorrect. Having already heard Ronson talk about the main content of the book such as the Justine Sacco and Jonah Lehrer cases, there were fewer elements of surprise for me when reading it as some of the material was already familiar. However, Ronson’s observations on the subject are very astute and he has chosen an interesting range of examples for the book. Although ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’ doesn’t provide any real “answers” as to why people shame others, it is a thought-provoking look at the very modern phenomenon of online mob justice. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, Gavin Francis, Jon Ronson, Lissa Evans, Literature, Non fiction, Novels, Reading, Reviews, Stephen King
August 20, 2015 · 3:08 pm
It was reported last week that some libraries in Birmingham have “stopped buying books and newspapers” and are requesting donations from the public. Yet just two years earlier, the city had been celebrating the opening of the very shiny state-of-the-art Library of Birmingham which was built at a cost of £188 million. It is the largest civic library in Europe and also features a gallery, theatre, recording studio and extensive archives. However, it is the smaller libraries in the city where the requests have appeared, as the Library of Birmingham itself does not accept donations. Continue reading →
August 16, 2015 · 6:05 pm
‘T
he Story of a New Name’ is the second in the series of Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante and translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein. The book opens with Lila asking Elena to hide a box of notebooks from her husband. Instead, Elena dumps them in the river but not without reading them first and the story continues where the first book ‘My Brilliant Friend‘ left off with Lila leaving school and getting married to Stefano Carracci, a well-off local grocer. Unsurprisingly, their marriage is tempestuous from the very beginning while Elena is planning to continue her education and go to university. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Elena Ferrante, Fiction, Italian Literature, Italy, Literature, Naples, Reading, Translated Fiction, Translation
August 13, 2015 · 11:38 am
Even though I don’t give ratings in my own blog reviews, I always look at the one-star reviews of books I want to read on Amazon or Goodreads and sometimes wonder what compels people to write them. The number or proportion of these one-star reviews and the amount of venom contained within them – justified or otherwise – can often determine whether or not I am likely to buy the book. As with the purchase of any product, it seems natural to seek out what the worst case scenario might be in order to evaluate the risk of potential disappointment.
Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Amazon, Blog, Blogging, Book, Book Blogs, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, Goodreads, News, Non fiction, Reading
August 6, 2015 · 3:05 pm
Having read and enjoyed ‘The Mussel Feast‘ by Birgit Vanderbeke and ‘The Dead Lake‘ by Hamid Ismailov, I have been seeking out more titles published by Peirene Press, a small independent publishing house who specialise in contemporary European novellas translated into English, which the Times Literary Supplement describes as “literary cinema for those fatigued by film”. So far, I’ve found six more in charity shops and Hay-on-Wye bookshops:
As August is Women in Translation Month hosted by Biblibio, I’ve been reading ‘Mr Darwin’s Gardener’ by Kristina Carlson translated from the Finnish by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah (Title No. 11 from the Turning Point: Revolutionary Moments series) and ‘The Blue Room’ by Hanne Ørstavik translated from the Norwegian by Deborah Dawkin (Title No. 14 from the Coming-of-Age: Towards Identity series). It’s a happy coincidence that the books I have chosen have both been written and translated by women. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, Finland, Hanne Ørstavik, IFFP, Kristina Carlson, Literature, Norway, Peirene Press, Reading, Reviews, Translated Fiction, Translation
July 29, 2015 · 7:32 pm
The longlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize was announced today. The thirteen titles are:
- Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg (US)
- The Green Road by Anne Enright (Ireland)
- A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Jamaica)
- The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami (US)
- Satin Island by Tom McCarthy (UK)
- The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria)
- The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan (UK)
- Lila by Marilynne Robinson (US)
- Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy (India)
- The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota (UK)
- The Chimes by Anna Smaill (New Zealand)
- A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (US)
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (US)
Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Awards, Booker Prize, Fiction, Literary Awards, Literary Fiction, Literature, Man Booker Prize, Man Booker Prize 2015, News, Publishing, Reading
July 25, 2015 · 6:46 pm
Originally published as ‘L’Homme pressé’ in 1941, ‘The Man in a Hurry’ by Paul Morand has recently been translated from the French by Euan Cameron and printed by Pushkin Press. It tells the story of Pierre Niox, a Parisian antiques dealer who is permanently in a rush to get things done. His friends, business partner, valet and even his cat can’t keep up with his frenetic pace of life and gradually abandon him. However, when Pierre falls in love with the laidback and easy-going Hedwige, he is forced to adapt his impulsive behaviour to win her over by learning how to settle down and savour the simple things in life. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, France, French Literature, Literature, Novels, Paris, Reading, Reviews, Translated Fiction, Translation
July 11, 2015 · 1:54 pm
It was announced earlier this week that the Man Booker International Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize will be merging next year to create a new literary prize for translated fiction.
Novels and short story collections translated into English and published in the UK will be eligible for the annual Man Booker International Prize with a longlist of twelve or thirteen novels announced in March, a shortlist in April and the winner in May. Like the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the award will be shared equally between the author and translator. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Fiction, IFFP, Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Literary Awards, Literature, Man Booker International Prize, Man Booker Prize, News, Novels, Reading, Translated Fiction, Translation
July 4, 2015 · 5:48 pm
‘My Brilliant Friend’ is the first in the series of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein, it tells the story of two young girls, Elena Greco and Raffaela “Lila” Cerullo, spanning their friendship over the years. The series opens with Elena, aged in her sixties, taking a telephone call from Lila’s son Rino who informs her that Lila has gone missing. Having received this news, Elena looks back on her childhood and adolescence growing up with her lifelong friend outside Naples during the late 1950s and 1960s. Continue reading →
Filed under Books
Tagged as Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Elena Ferrante, Fiction, Italian Literature, Italy, Literature, My Brilliant Friend, Novels, Reviews, Translated Fiction, Translation
A Little Blog of Books 
You must be logged in to post a comment.