The latest addition to my website is Zadie Smith‘s Swing Time, another superb novel from this author. The unnamed narrator is the daughter of a white man and black woman. She grows up wanting to be a dancer (hence the title) and, with her friend, Tracey, attends dance classes. But their paths diverge. Our narrator … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ian McEwan‘s Nutshell. The novel is narrated by an unborn foetus, The foetus’ mother, Trudy, is separated from his father, John, a poet and poetry publisher, and is having a relationship with his uncle, Claude, the poet’s brother. The foetus realises that the couple are plotting to kill … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Claire-Louise Bennett‘s Pond. This book is subtitled Stories but it is really a novel, as it tells the tale of the unnamed narrator and her three years living in a (fairly) remote cottage in rural Ireland. We learn that she likes nature but not in a too romantic … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Max Porter‘s Grief is the Thing With Feathers. This is a highly imaginative book about grief. Dad – we never know his name – has just lost his wife. It seems that she fell and hit her head. He is left with two young sons. He is visited … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kate Atkinson‘s A God in Ruins. This is a follow-up to her quirky Life After Life. That book featured Ursula Todd. This book, which also features Ursula Todd to some degree, is primarily about her younger brother, Ted, and his daughter Viola. Apart from a little bit at … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jeanette Winterson‘s The Gap of Time. This is the first in a series of reimaginings of Shakespeare’s plays by well-known novelists. Winterson has chosen to do The Winter’s Tale, because, as she says, it is about an abandoned baby and she was abandoned as a baby. Winterson certainly … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ellis Sharp‘s Lamees Naji, the third Sharp novel published this year and the third I have reviewed in the past couple of weeks. This one is different from the other two. While it is certainly experimental, on the surface it seems quite mundane. We follow the life of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jonathan Coe‘s Number 11. This is a sort of an update to Coe’s What a Carve Up! (US: The Winshaw Legacy). The former book attacks Thatcherism and this book attacks the current state of contemporary Britain, though far less savagely and not focussed on the prime minister but … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ellis Sharp‘s Quin Again. Though subtitled and other stories, it reads as a novel as all but one of the stories is about the same character, albeit with a different name on a couple of occasions. He is Elijah Doodles McMaster aka Douglas Moog. He is a habitual … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ellis Sharp‘s To Wetumpka. This is, inevitably, another experimental novel from Sharp, with a bleak view of the contemporary world, albeit touched with some humour. Clifford Tollinger has decided to escape from London and go the dreary seaside town of Lowestoft, on the East coast of England. One … Read more