Over the last few weeks of summer it felt like everything in my life suddenly went tits up. If you are American and reading this, then I should explain that this is our British equivalent of ‘when life gives you lemons…..’, but actually it’s far more coarse and far more aptly describes how things feel […]
Middle age teaches us many things, one of which is that you never know what goes on in someone else’s marriage. At the end of the day, once the doors are closed and the curtains drawn, our dearest friends could be hanging from the chandelier with a bottle of Grey Goose in one hand and […]
It’s always a good day when you open a new novel for the first time, but never more so than when it’s author is Jane Harper and the book in question is one you didn’t think you would have the opportunity to read for the next few months. Imagine my delight when my summer vacation […]
Caroline Kepnes can write, but you’ve probably already read You, so you don’t need me to tell you that. If you haven’t yet discovered You, go immediately to your local bookstore or library and obtain a copy. Your only regret will be not having read it sooner. I remember when I discovered You, I really […]
Fiction and reality blur fabulously in The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz. Last summer I had read and really enjoyed The Magpie Murders, but hadn’t pulled the trigger (sorry!) on buying another Horowitz until I found myself splurging at Bookshop Santa Cruz. When you end up buying upwards of five books, you start to […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about Notes on a Nervous Planet and sharing some of the choicest nuggets with friends. I have a feeling that reading Matt Haig can only ever make you a better, more understanding individual and surely that’s something that we all crave? This work is really the bookend to Haig’s Reasons […]
If you want a book that is genuinely going to make you smile this summer, then you could do a lot worse than purchasing or borrowing The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms. It’s a total enjoyment fest! I had never heard of Kelly Harms, but by chance came across her whilst on […]
The Cost of Living is my first Deborah Levy book, but I have questions for those of you who have had the good fortune to read others. Are they all this good? Do you always need to read them with a pen and piece of paper at your side to jot down beautiful quotes? Is […]
Living in northern California, close to San Francisco, I seldom have reason to ever really consider what life in Los Angeles must be like. In the last ten years, beyond the amusement parks that litter the LA suburbs, I’ve never had reason or need to visit. As a backpacking European in the 1990s, a friend […]
There are some books that you simply live as you read, part wishing that this life could be yours. Paris By The Book by Liam Callanan is one of them. Callanan tells the story of Leah, a mother of two girls, living in Milwaukee and married to novelist, Robert Eady. Robert has a good deal […]
Nutshell Book Reviews 