The longlist for the Man Booker Prize 2013 was announced today. 151 books were submitted for consideration and the final 13 are:
Five Star Billionaire: Tash Aw We Need New Names: NoViolet Bulawayo The Luminaries: Eleanor Catton Harvest: Jim Crace The Marrying of Chani Kaufman: Eve Harris The Kills: Richard House The Lowland: Jhumpa Lahiri Unexploded: Alison MacLeod TransAtlantic: Colum McCann Almost English: Charlotte Mendelson A Tale for the Time Being: Ruth Ozeki The Spinning Heart: Donal Ryan The Testament of Mary: Colm Tóibín Continue readingTag Archives: Reading
Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel
‘Giving Up the Ghost’ is Hilary Mantel’s memoir first published in 2003, six years before she won the Booker Prize in 2009 for ‘Wolf Hall‘. The ghosts in question are the ghost of her step-father, the ghost she saw in the garden at the age of seven and the ghost of the child she could never have. Continue reading
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Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
‘Bad Science’ by Ben Goldacre exposes the manipulated statistics, flawed analysis and general misuse and/or bad practice of science by journalists, the pharmaceutical industry and other quacks. From medical trials which fail to include a control group to misleading cosmetic and health food marketing, the book examines the people and the data behind some of the weakest areas of scientific and health research. Continue reading
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J. K. Rowling Publishes Crime Novel Under Pseudonym
Today, I woke up to the news that J. K Rowling has published a crime novel called ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ under the name Robert Galbraith. Published about three months ago, the book has so far sold about 1,500 copies in hardback and tells the story of a war veteran turned private investigator. The publisher’s website confirmed that Robert Galbraith was a pseudonym but the true identity of the author has only just been revealed today. Continue reading
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A Heart So White by Javier Marías
‘A Heart So White’ by Javier Marías tells the story of a newly-married interpreter called Juan, and his complex relationship with his father, Ranz. The opening chapter is a six-page paragraph which recounts the suicide of a young woman who we later learn was Ranz’s first wife, the sister of Juan’s mother. The mystery surrounding these circumstances is gradually revealed through a number of other events. Continue reading
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Five Reasons To Support Your Local Indie Bookshop
This week is Independent Booksellers Week. An interesting article in The Guardian yesterday outlined five reasons to support your local indie bookshop. In order from worst to best, they are:
5) To maintain property prices in your area: Maybe this is because I am neither a Daily Mail reader nor a property owner, but this seems like a very strange reason to support an indie bookshop. I suppose there is a tenuous link in that independent shops are generally found in nice places to live. However, it isn’t really at the top of my list of priorities…
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Back Story by David Mitchell
I love David Mitchell. Just to clarify, I am of course referring to the David Mitchell who stars in one of my favourite ever sitcoms, ‘Peep Show’, rather than the David Mitchell who wrote a really weird book called ‘Cloud Atlas‘ which I failed to finish earlier this year. ‘Back Story’ is David (‘Peep Show’) Mitchell’s memoir about his peaceful middle-class childhood, his experiences with Footlights at Cambridge University and his route to fame as a critically acclaimed actor and comedian. It definitely has nothing to do with ‘Cloud Atlas’ although Mitchell says he is frequently mistaken for the author of the bestselling book.
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The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell (and some musings on book covers)
Winner of the Costa Novel Award in 2010, ‘The Hand That First Held Mine’ by Maggie O’Farrell features two alternating narratives. The first one is set in the 1950s and tells the story of Lexie, a young woman who runs away to start a new life in the Soho area of London and falls in love with Innes Kent, a magazine editor. The second is set in the present day and tells the story of Elina, a young Finnish woman who has just had a baby with her partner, Ted. The two generations are linked, but how? Continue reading
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No Logo by Naomi Klein
If Don Draper from Mad Men was (a) a real person and (b) still alive in the 21st century having somehow avoided smoking or drinking himself to death, I am sure that he would have a lot to say about ‘No Logo’ by Naomi Klein. Described as “equal parts cultural analysis, political manifesto, mall-rat memoir, and journalistic exposé”, ‘No Logo’ has been one of the most controversial and widely talked-about books of the last decade, tackling the debates surrounding consumerism, branding and the anti-corporate movement. This tenth anniversary edition contains a new foreword which comments on some of the developments that have been made since ‘No Logo’ was first published in 1999. Continue reading
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Paris by Edward Rutherfurd
I won a copy of ‘Paris’ by Edward Rutherfurd through Waterstones who offer free copies of recently published books to cardholders through a prize draw in return for an honest review. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to copy my official review in full on my blog so you can read it here instead (not sure why my name hasn’t appeared next to it yet but it’s the 3 star review by the anonymous 23-year-old under the customer reviews tab). Continue reading
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The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
‘The Crimson Petal and the White’ by Michel Faber tells the story of Sugar, a nineteen year old prostitute living in London in the 1870s in a brothel run by her mother. She is ‘bought’ by William Rackham, a perfumer, to be his exclusive mistress – a situation which takes her life in unexpected directions. The stories of William’s disturbed wife, Agnes, and his pious brother, Henry, are also woven in to this rich tapestry of a story teeming with detail on all aspects of Victorian life. Continue reading
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Books for Free
Yes, those three words always grab my attention too. Books for Free is an initiative set up by Healthy Planet which redistributes unwanted books which would otherwise have ended up in landfill. Centres have been popping up all over the UK since it was launched in 2010 and it has been a big success. It is primarily an environmental cause aimed at promoting recycling but also plays an important role in bringing communities together and encouraging more people to read and share books.
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Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
I read ‘Wolf Hall‘ nearly a year ago and to be honest, I can’t remember a great deal about the actual content of the story and had to force myself to finish it. Although the book was undoubtedly a quality piece of historical fiction, my main gripe about it was that there were too many characters and unless you have studied early sixteenth century British history in considerable depth then it is very hard to keep track of exactly who is who. However, although ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ also has a large cast of characters, this instalment of the trilogy is set over a much narrower time period (one year rather than three decades) and the story of Anne Boleyn’s downfall is likely to be much more familiar to readers than Thomas Cromwell’s early years (at least it was to me anyway). The fact that it’s over 200 pages shorter than ‘Wolf Hall’ also helps a lot. Continue reading
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NW by Zadie Smith
I gave a slightly mixed review of ‘White Teeth‘ by Zadie Smith last year. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would but it did have a few flaws. Over a decade after her first novel was published when she was just twenty-five years old, Smith now offers us ‘NW’, another ambitious and sprawling novel which focuses on four thirty-something characters – Leah, Felix, Natalie and Nathan – who all grew up on the Caldwell council estate in north-west London and find that their lives continue to overlap many years later. Continue reading
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Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
I recently read the first of the Jackson Brodie novels, ‘Case Histories‘, by Kate Atkinson which I thought was pretty good but not truly amazing. Several other bloggers left comments suggesting that I might prefer Atkinson’s other stand-alone novels, particularly ‘Behind The Scenes at the Museum’ and her most recent work, ‘Life After Life’, which has been shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. I am pleased to say that they were right! Continue reading
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Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
I have reserved ‘Life After Life’ by Kate Atkinson which is currently on order at the library, so just in case I don’t get a chance to read it before the Women’s Prize for Fiction event at the Southbank Centre in June, I thought I would read the first of the Jackson Brodie novels, ‘Case Histories’, to get a feel for Atkinson’s writing. Jackson Brodie, a former police inspector turned private investigator , is working on three apparently separate cold cases in the Cambridge area – the disappearance of a three year old girl in the 1970s, the murder of a solicitor’s daughter and another murder after a domestic incident between husband and wife. These crimes all turn out to be linked – but how? Continue reading
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It’s been a long time since I’ve read a collection of short stories so when Lydia Davis won the Man International Booker Prize earlier this year, I decided to investigate her work.


‘Levels of Life’ by Julian Barnes is (I think) the only book I have reviewed on this blog which I have tagged as both fiction and non-fiction. Part essay, part fiction and part memoir, the book certainly defies simple categorisation despite being less than 120 pages long. 



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