Posted in Fiction: children's, Fiction: young adult, tagged Emily's reviews, Jaclyn Moriarty, mystery, young adult on October 31, 2007 | 8 Comments »
When I read YA fiction, and like it, I find that I am either transported back to fifteen, utterly absorbed as my younger self, or I read it from a distance, aware of how much more I would have enjoyed it without all those pesky years getting in the way. This is the third [...]
Posted in Entries by Leena, Fiction: humour, Fiction: romance, tagged feminism, political satire, romance, Rosy Thornton on October 29, 2007 | 9 Comments »
More Than Love Letters is a strange beast. It has a twenty-something heroine, a contemporary setting, romance and humour, all bound in a somewhat chick-lit-ish cover - but it’s also a political satire with feminist under- and overtones, and an epistolary novel of multiple voices, told in letters, emails, newspaper reports and other documents.It also [...]
Posted in Poetry: children's, tagged animals, Ariadne's reviews, children, Leonard Baskin, Poetry, Ted Hughes on October 28, 2007 | 4 Comments »
It is no secret that the children’s poetry section is the Biafra of most bookshops. Neglected and betrayed, it is a shadow of its former shelf. The starvation of the imagination is heart-breaking, the little aid in the form of yet another ‘burps and bogeys’ book or well-meaning charity/sleb collection may well do more harm [...]
Posted in Entries by Jenn, Fiction: literary, tagged Fante, first person on October 28, 2007 | 18 Comments »
Ask the Dust is the short, unsentimental and very funny story of a struggling writer - set in 1930s LA. The ‘plot’ is slight – tracing the shaky start to narrator Arturo Bandini’s literary career and his pursuit of Camillia - a Mexican waitress who is in turn, in love with another writer – the [...]
Posted in Fiction: general, Fiction: literary, tagged fiction, Ian McEwan, novella, Trilby’s reviews on October 28, 2007 | 10 Comments »
I’ve heard a few people moan about Ian McEwan lately, and I’ve been struggling to fathom why. The most outrageous claim so far has been that On Chesil Beach “wasn’t long enough” to deserve the Booker. Now, really. The Prince, A Room of One’s Own and The Great Gatsby are all relatively short works, but [...]
Posted in Entries by Mary, Fiction: historical, tagged French literature, Mary's reviews, Nazi, WW2 on October 24, 2007 | 8 Comments »
Maybe it’s a little bit of a cheat to review a book that is, as far as I can tell, no longer in print in its English version but if I do here it’s because I stumbled over this book and, against all my expectations, found it exceptional. Its impact on me has only increased [...]
Posted in Entries by Jackie, Fiction: general, Fiction: historical, tagged animals, Victorian memoirs on October 24, 2007 | 5 Comments »
Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile by Verlyn Klinkenborg is a unique book. Told from the unusual viewpoint of a Greek tortoise which actually lived at the home of amateur naturalist Rev. Gilbert White in the late 1700’s and is memorialized in the Reverend’s diaries. Those diaries were filled with new ideas on plants [...]
Posted in Fiction: children's, Fiction: fantasy, tagged children's books, Eve's reviews, Frances Hardinge, Verdigris Deep on October 23, 2007 | 7 Comments »
How lovely to be able to tell you all about books that I have picked off the shelves. Books whose covers have captured my imagination or whose blurbs have sparked an interest or maybe even ones I have found whilst on my daily trawls through cyberspace.
The first book I have chosen to share with you [...]
Posted in Entries by Leena, Fiction in translation, tagged Finnish literature, Tove Jansson on October 22, 2007 | 6 Comments »
It may make me a Bad Finn, but I’ve never properly read the Moomin books. As a child I was uninterested; as a teenager, I found them creepy. (Yes, I was a wuss of a teenager.) Only now in my twenties I’m beginning to discover Tove Jansson, the National Treasure, through her novels for grown-ups [...]
Posted in Entries by Jenn, Fiction: literary, Fiction: short stories, tagged Laura Hird, short stories on October 21, 2007 | 4 Comments »
I have never written a book review before so I have just made up some rules to help me to do it. I will read some books I was going to read anyway and then if I have anything to say about them I will write it down and put it on this blog.I [...]
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