Perhaps I should start this review by stating, sadly, that How to Find Love in a Bookshop is not a self-help book for the recently separated. If it were, I expect it would be nearly impossible to find a copy! Veronica Henry’s novel is, of course, a love story of the fictional kind and oddly, […]
I couldn’t quite put my finger on what Midnight Blue reminded me of, and then it hit me: waiting rooms. I know that sounds like an awful thing to say and a damning summary of the book, but let me explain. I’m in my late forties and, in an era before phones, you might […]
This week a friend of mine posted a question to Facebook, asking what the first thing we would like to do is when the quarantine is over might be? I’m notoriously bad about responding to such things, but it did make me think. I know that I want to go out with friends and eat […]
Every now and then you read a book that you just love so much, that you wish you could move inside it, inhabiting the very world in which it is set. This is how I felt as I read The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow. I actually don’t really know how […]
My twelve year old son loves a good conspiracy theory and, whilst I like to listen to him share whatever ‘story’ he has found online or heard at school, I suppose that I have always been pretty dismissive of such things and the adults who propound them. The events of 9/11 are never far from […]
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 […]
Dear Reader, I’m a total softie when it comes to books written in letter format. I don’t know what it is, but I just love them. Isn’t everything softer and easier in a letter? It’s a gentler pace, the waiting or even yearning for a response. They take a level of consideration, of planning out, […]
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 […]
Whatever weekend plans you have, cancel them. I’m serious. They simply cannot be better than sitting down and giving a day to Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J.Firky. I absolutely adored this novel, in fact along with Victor Lavalle’s The Changeling, which is a very different kind of book altogether, it’s my favorite book […]
I at once loved Dept. Of Speculation by Jenny Offill and had to acknowledge that I had never read anything quite like it. It’s so beautiful and well done that frankly it has rendered me bereft of words to describe it. To tell you what this story is about, hardly seems to do it justice […]
Nutshell Book Reviews 