Books with the title in cursive writing on the front cover scream CHICK LIT, a genre I studiously avoid. The off putting thing about chick lit is that you know what’s going to happen in chick lit before you go to the trouble of reading it. The main character will start off somehow not fully […]
General fiction
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
It’s a classic for a reason – profoundly good, unexpectedly funny and unforgettable. If you were unfortunate enough not to encounter it in your early teens, read it now. But whatever you do, don’t read the appalling Go Set a Watchman afterwards. That book should never have been published. It makes me so mad I […]
How to Be Safe by Tom McAllister
A beautiful little incendiary of a book that lobs itself straight into the brain, and burns. Suspended high school teacher Anna Crawford’s life is never quite the same after she is falsely accused of involvement in a high school shooting. But then her life before wasn’t great either. The commentary that erupts unedited from her […]
A Quiet Life by Natasha Walter
Quietly lovely, this book is slow and well written, rich in character. Though ostensibly about spies, it’s not at all a thriller, but rather a study of the real cost of leading double lives.
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Many people I respect have been enchanted by this novel, but sadly I’m not one of them. Perry succeeds in creating a fairly creepy atmosphere on the late nineteenth century moors but it goes nowhere and the main characters just aren’t that interesting. You might like it. I didn’t much.
The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson
Like Patricia Highsmith’s novels, this fictionalised account of a part of Patricia Highsmith’s life is well written and emotionally cool. It’s engaging enough to amble through, but nothing to write home about. Perhaps it would appeal more to great fans of Highsmith.
Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
Beautiful, classic Tyler. Her sentences contain multitudes. We meet Willa Dance at eleven years old, coping with her temperatmental mother’s absence and the silence and secrets and frequent bewilderments of childhood, all the while adoring her gentle, calm father. Then the narrative skips to ten years later, when Willa becomes engaged to Derek, a startingly […]
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Wow. What an incandescent ball of light this book is; a scorching, eviscerating examination of nature versus nurture and the limits of parental love. Shriver shines a unflinching light on the bits of being parents we’d all prefer to keep hidden and unsaid. What do we do if we regret becoming parents, and it’s too […]