Category: Literary Fiction

The Vegetarian, Han Kang

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This is a very difficult book to review, to consider, to - for wont of a better analogy - digest. It is also a book which I think will haunt and follow me. And, Heaven forfend, make me think. What an appalling concept! The plot, such as it is, is devastatingly simple: Kim Yeong-hye is… Continue reading The Vegetarian, Han Kang

Gift of Stones, Jim Crace

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Hmm mmmmmm. Some books I'm glad I read before reading any reviews. What would I have learned? It's set in the Stone Age. Instantly, I'd be put off. I'd be imagining Raquel Welsh in a fur bikini - not a bad thing in itself - and all the other nonsense from one Million Years BC… Continue reading Gift of Stones, Jim Crace

The Lie Tree, Francis Hardinge

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I am coming to adore Frances Hardinge! I've only read this and Cuckoo Song to be fair, but there's something about her imagination and her writing which chimes with me: dark, intensely personal, yet somehow mythic at the same time. She captures a sense of wonder,  of terror, of awe which is simultaneously so childlike… Continue reading The Lie Tree, Francis Hardinge

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

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This book - a Booker Prize shortlisted book from a Booker Prize winning novelist - has been sat on my book shelf since forever. I was convinced I'd read it. I am sure I've had lengthy and enthusiastic discussions about it. Heated debates. Yet, having downloaded it from Audible as a re-read, expecting something familiar… Continue reading Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

In The Woods, Tana French

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This is my second Tana French novel, and it was her debut with the Dublin Murder Squad series. And I do enjoy her writing style.    We have here, ostensibly, a crime novel. A twelve year old girl, Katy Devlin, is discovered dead on the altar stone at an archeological dig. Detective Rob Ryan and… Continue reading In The Woods, Tana French

Life After Life, Kate Atkinson

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Kate Atkinson is one of those authors who I have been aware of but avoided for a while. I put my hands up, it was and has been deeply unfair of me. Like that chap in the village I grew up in who always crossed the road when he saw my mother to avoid talking… Continue reading Life After Life, Kate Atkinson

The Miniaturist, Jesse Burton

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It is Sunday night. Today was warm, sunny, a little humid on the south western coast of England. And yet, standing in that sun, warmed by it, with this book open I am transported to a frozen canal sides of Amsterdam over the winter of 1686. And, as I write this, I'd love an olie-koecken.… Continue reading The Miniaturist, Jesse Burton

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Jay Fowler

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Why are so few book covers yellow? This looks gorgeous! Like a literary bumblebee. I have to confess, the only reason I picked this up was the cover - despite the advice parents give their children the world over. That and Waterstone's promotions. But I'm really glad I did because it's a powerful, haunting, human… Continue reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Jay Fowler

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton

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Ahhh, Eleanor Catton's Man Booker winning The Luminaries. It's certainly not a quick read! It took such a time to read it - and admittedly my reading coincided with a stroppy baby and a hectic few weeks at work - that the beautiful cover started to wear off! The M of LUMINARIES on the front… Continue reading The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton

Room, Emma Donoghue

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This book had been on my to-read list since it was listed for The Booker Prize. The copy I had was electronic and just stopped about 20 pages in... And I never got round to replacing it. Until it cropped up whilst I was browsing on Audible. This was a perfect book for an audio… Continue reading Room, Emma Donoghue

Harvest, Jim Crace

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I loved this book, for so many reasons!! It is the story of a week in an unnamed village in an unspecified part of England at an unspecified period. And I loved the timelessness of Crace's prose: his narrator's language is lyrical and deeply informed by the landscape but not archaic or faux-authentic. If we… Continue reading Harvest, Jim Crace

The Testament of Mary, Colm Tóibín

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I was hugely looking forward to this novel - although at 100 pages, novelette may be a more apt title - which failed to win the Man Booker prize last night. It is the story of Mary. That Mary. Mother of Jesus, Bearer of God, Theotokos, the Madonna. Of all figures to try to give… Continue reading The Testament of Mary, Colm Tóibín

Tsotsi, Athol Fugard Analysis

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So these are the ideas which I have been discussing with my class. Tsotsi is set in 1956, give or take, in Sophiatown, a township on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was written by Fugard in the early months of 1960 after Sophiatown had been destroyed by the white community in Johannesburg and,… Continue reading Tsotsi, Athol Fugard Analysis

Tsotsi, Athol Fugard

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Finished reading this now, waiting for students at school to catch up! If only some damn fool of a teacher just let them read it instead of teaching it and making them do work on it! Oh well! This is an outstanding book! The quality of the writing literally glitters on the page and the… Continue reading Tsotsi, Athol Fugard