I have never viewed myself as much of a Halloween person. I tend to see it as a bother, rather than a seasonal celebration, but this year I missed it. In some ways, I went through the rhythms of the season; a trip to the pumpkin patch, my friend’s – socially distanced – pumpkin carving […]
Over the last week or so, I’ve been struggling with quite what to write about The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall. It’s not really like anything else I have read and yet, in some fundamental way, it’s just like everything I read; really good modern fiction. What makes it different, is that it’s also about […]
If there was a ‘God of Books’, many of us would pray for that most precious of all things; the great book run. That dreamlike period of time, during which each book you read is a little better than the last, or if not better, then equally as good and just of a different type. […]
I just can’t seem to help myself, but I always end up coming back to Lisa Jewell. She’s the Cadbury Dairy Milk of authors in my mind. Reliably delicious stories that never disappoint, always hit the mark, leaving you satisfied and yes, wanting more. Chances are that if I don’t know what to read, perhaps […]
There’s a certain currency to a life in London, just as surely as there’s a certain currency to being in your twenties and that’s exactly what Candice Carty-Williams’ novel Queenie so perfectly embodies. It’s also the reason why so many critics are likening this novel to Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, which so symbolized my […]
There’s a fighting chance that this week’s book review should actually be part of last week’s because they’re by the same writer and I read them in quick succession. Please don’t worry, I’ve now read everything Abbi Waxman has written, so there won’t be a follow up (although secretly, or not, I really wish that […]
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 […]
My friend Ms M and I often laugh about how we sometimes choose a book based solely on its cover. We know we shouldn’t and yet we do. Clearly the pair us are susceptible to good marketing techniques, but on occasion it can lead us in just the right direction, toward a lovely and unexpected […]
I really wish I was friends with Celeste Ng. Child Number One recently encouraged me to join Twitter in order to make my blog more successful and less of a pet project. Reluctantly I began the process and if the truth be told, I still don’t really understand what I’m doing and I’m pretty sure […]
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 