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Books I Read in March 2024 | A Little Blog of Books
A Tomb With a View by Peter Ross is a fascinating book about graveyards in Britain and Ireland and the stories of some well-known and forgotten residents as well as the work of those who care for them. The famous Victorian cemeteries in London such as Highgate and Kensal Rise face issues with limited space…
Books I Read in February 2024 | A Little Blog of Books
A Life of One’s Own by Joanna Biggs is a blend of literary criticism and mini biographies of eight female authors and how they carved out creative freedoms for themselves, alongside Biggs’s personal reflections on her experience of going through a divorce in her 30s and losing her mother to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease a few…
Books I Read in January 2024 | A Little Blog of Books
Wellness by Nathan Hill is set in the 1990s when Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students amid a vibrant art scene in Chicago. The novel follows the ups and downs of their relationship over the next 20 years through to middle age when they are married with a young son. Jack is a photographer…
My Most Anticipated Books of 2024 | A Little Blog of Books
My list of books to read continues to expand and there are lots to look forward to in 2024. All publication dates where known apply to the United Kingdom only. Wellness by Nathan Hill is published in January. I really enjoyed Hill’s debut novel The Nix and his second book is…
My Books of the Year 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
One of the stand-out novels I read in 2023 was Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld which is a fun and refreshingly original take on the genre. I also really enjoyed The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith which is the seventh outing for Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott’s detective agency as they…
Books I Read in December 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
I often seek out the books which receive rare positive reviews in Private Eye magazine and Wasteland by Oliver Franklin-Wallis is a truly eye-opening look at where our waste actually ends up. Franklin-Wallis probes a lot of uncomfortable truths about recycling and greenwashing on his travels around the world starting at a recycling centre in…
Books I Read in November 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
Nine Pints by Rose George is a non-fiction about “the mysterious, miraculous world of blood”. The title refers to the approximate amount of blood we have in our bodies, and George explores various blood-related topics across nine chapters covering disease, cultural attitudes and medical breakthroughs. George‘s global tour includes HIV education in South Africa, the…
Books I Read in October 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith is the seventh outing for Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott’s private detective agency. When they are approached by the family of a young man feared to have been brainwashed by a religious cult, Robin goes undercover at Chapman’s farm in Norfolk to find out what is really going on…
Books I Read in September 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
The Fraud by Zadie Smith weaves together three storylines based on true events in the 19th century. A Cockney butcher arrives in London from Australia claiming to be Sir Roger Tichborne, the heir to a baronetcy and previously thought to have been lost at sea. His sensational fraud trial in London captures everyone’s attention, including…
Books I Read in August 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell is a fictionalised account of the marriage of 15-year-old Lucrezia di Cosima de’Medici to Alfonso, Duke of Ferrera in sixteenth century Florence, merging two powerful family dynasties. Lucrezia would be dead barely a year later, allegedly of “putrid fever” but rumours persist that she was murdered, as per the…
Books I Read in July 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
Stasiland by Anna Funder won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2004 (now known as the Baillie Gifford Prize) and chronicles the lives of several people who lived in the German Democratic Republic, also known as East Germany, during the Cold War. Funder, an Australian journalist, was working in television in the mid-1990s when…
The Booker Prize 2023 Longlist | A Little Blog of Books
The Booker Prize longlist was announced on Tuesday. The 13 titles are: A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney This Other Eden by Paul Harding Pearl by…
The Booker Prize 2023: Predictions, Possibilities and Preferences | A Little Blog of Books
In my Booker Prize blog post last year, I noted that my longlist predictions lists in 2020 and 2021 included the eventual winners in those years: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart and The Promise by Damon Galgut. I posed the question of whether I could make it three years in a row. The answer was a resounding no, but I…
Books I Read in June 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
I went to the Hay Festival for a couple of days at the end of May and picked up Regenesis by George Monbiot from the signed copies table in the Festival Bookshop (climate and food seemed to be big topics at the Festival this year). The first half of Monbiot’s book about the state of…
Books I Read in May 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my most anticipated books of 2023. Sally is a comedy writer for the late-night sketch show The Night Owls - a fictionalised version of Saturday Night Live - where she meets Noah Brewster, a pop star since the early 2000s who is appearing as a guest host.…
Books I Read in April 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
Red Sauce Brown Sauce by Felicity Cloake is a travel memoir which documents the Guardian food writer’s “British breakfast odyssey” cycling around the UK in search of all the components of breakfast food from sausages in Glamorgan to potato bread in Northern Ireland to jam in Tiptree. Hampered by persistent hamstring injuries and COVID-19 restrictions…
Books I Read in March 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
Lessons by Ian McEwan spans the life of Roland Baines, born shortly after the Second World War. Taking in several major world crises from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Chernobyl disaster to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as intimate domestic events, ‘Lessons’ is a sprawling epic and easily McEwan’s longest novel. Some elements of Roland’s…
Books I Read in February 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flyn was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2021 - two of my favourite literary prizes. Flyn explores 13 places where humans used to live but have now left for good. While most of the locations…
The Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
The Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist for 2023 was announced yesterday. The 16 titles are: Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo Homesick by Jennifer Croft Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes Trespasses by Louise Kennedy Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh The Dog…
Books I Read in January 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
Love Marriage by Monica Ali tells the story of 26-year-old junior doctor Yasmin Ghorani who is engaged to fellow medic Joe Sangster. The novel opens with Yasmin’s Bengali immigrant parents meeting Joe’s famous feminist mother for the first time at her house in Primrose Hill. The evening forces Yasmin to re-evaluate her assumptions and opinions about…
My Most Anticipated Books of 2023 | A Little Blog of Books
There are lots of new books due in 2023 which I’m looking forward to reading and my list continues to expand by the day. All publication dates where known apply to the United Kingdom only. There are some promising looking debut novels out in January including Really Good, Actually by Monica…
My Books of the Year 2022 | A Little Blog of Books
There were three novels which really stood out for me in 2022. Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet was longlisted for the Booker Prize last year and skilfully presents the fictional biography of psychoanalyst Arthur Collins Braithwaite as authentic source material. Careless by Kirsty Capes is an excellent debut novel which was longlisted for this…
Books I Read in December | A Little Blog of Books
For Richer For Poorer by Victoria Coren is the Only Connect presenter’s 2009 memoir about how she became a professional poker player and the first female winner of the European Poker Tour in 2006 in London. Overall, ‘For Richer, For Poorer’ will probably be appreciated the most by those who already know a fair amount…
Books I Read in November | A Little Blog of Books
Traitor King by Andrew Lownie is an account of the events which followed Edward VIII’s abdication of the throne in 1936 to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Lownie puts forward a convincing case that the newly created Duke and Duchess of Windsor were not just fascist sympathisers but also actively colluded with the Nazi regime.…
Books I Read in February | A Little Blog of Books
Time has run away from me again this month, so I am only just getting round to reviewing the books I read in February starting with No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy by Mark Hodkinson. His part bibliomemoir part cultural history details how he became a voracious reader in Rochdale in the mid-1970s in a working-class…
Summer Reading: Part Two | A Little Blog of Books
The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani, translated from the French by Sam Taylor, is the first book in a planned trilogy of historical fiction. In a very different setting and genre from Slimani’s breakout thriller Lullaby, ‘The Country of Others’ opens just after the Second World War when a Frenchwoman from Alsace, Mathilde, falls in love…
The Booker Prize 2021: Predictions, Possibilities and Preferences | A Little Blog of Books
It’s that time of year again - the 2021 Booker Prize longlist will be announced on Tuesday 27th July and I have made a list of predictions in terms of what I think could be some strong possibilities alongside my own personal preferences, based on a few eligible books I have read in recent months, as…
Autumn Reading: Part One | A Little Blog of Books
The world probably doesn’t need another review of Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney by now, but you’re going to get one anyway. Rooney’s much anticipated third novel tells the story of Alice and her friend Eileen, both approaching 30 and living in Ireland, having met as roommates at university. Alice is a successful…
Non-Fiction I Have Read Recently | A Little Blog of Books
This summer has mostly been a non-fiction reading binge for me. Blood on the Page by Thomas Harding is one of the most unique and intriguing true crime books I have come across in a long time. Photographer, writer and expert on the playwright George Bernard Shaw, 86-year-old Allan Chappelow was found beaten to death at…
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo and Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead | A Little Blog of Books
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo was the joint winner of the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside The Testaments by Margaret Atwood which I read earlier this year. It follows the lives of 12 characters, mostly black British women, spanning several decades in four overlapping clusters. In the first part, we are introduced to Amma, a…
My Most Anticipated Books of 2022 | A Little Blog of Books
My list of most anticipated books coming soon in 2022 is growing by the day, so here are some of the highlights. All publication dates where known apply to the United Kingdom only. To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara is out this month and spans an alternative version of New York in…
My Books of the Year 2021 | A Little Blog of Books
A lot of my reading in 2021 has involved catching up on books published in 2020 or earlier, particularly among non-fiction. Hungry by Grace Dent and Bookworm by Lucy Mangan were among my favourite memoirs this year, and take a nostalgic look at the authors’ childhoods defined by food and books…
The Booker Prize 2021 Longlist | A Little Blog of Books
The Booker Prize longlist was announced on Tuesday. The 13 titles are: A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam Second Place by Rachel Cusk The Promise by Damon Galgut The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro An Island by Karen Jennings A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson No One is Talking About This…
Autumn Reading: Part Two | A Little Blog of Books
Downing Street has been in the news rather a lot this week, so it seems rather timely to have been reading Number 10: The Geography of Power at Downing Street by Jack Brown recently. Brown was the first ever Researcher in Residence at No. 10 and his book examines how the role of the Prime Minister and…
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe and Fall by John Preston | A Little Blog of Books
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe won the Baillie Giffard Prize for Non-Fiction last year and examines the history of three generations of the Sackler family. Radden Keefe is a journalist for the New Yorker and ‘Empire of Pain’ was developed from his 2017 article about the Sacklers. The Sackler name is mostly associated with philanthropy.…
Books I Read in March | A Little Blog of Books
I am rather partial to memoirs centred around food and I read two excellent ones last month, one of which was Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci. Tucci’s grandparents emigrated to the United States from Calabria, so his childhood growing up in Westchester, New York featured a lot of traditional Italian cooking. Food has also…
Books I Read in April | A Little Blog of Books
How Words Get Good: The Story of Making a Book by Rebecca Lee offers a fascinating look at the journey of making a book from initial idea in the author’s head to finished copies on a bookshelf. It celebrates the huge number of people involved in producing books, including authors who choose to remain anonymous, ghostwriters, literary…
Summer Reading: Part One | A Little Blog of Books
I have read a lot of great books over the summer and I now have a massive backlog of reviews to catch up on. Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller tells the story of 51-year-old twins, Jeanie and Julius, who still live with their mother in rural isolation, until her sudden death forces them to confront some…
The Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2022 | A Little Blog of Books
The Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist for 2022 was announced on Tuesday. The 16 titles are: The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini Salt Lick by Lulu Allison Careless by Kirsty Capes Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller Flamingo by Rachel Elliott The Sentence by Louise Erdrich Build…
Books I Read in January | A Little Blog of Books
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet is set in the 1960s and consists of a fictional biography of Arthur Collins Braithwaite, a radical psychoanalyst with a practice based in north London, interweaved with notebooks written by one of his patients which have been purportedly “discovered” by her cousin and passed on to the author. The patient…