This book is definitely not intended to amuse, but I could not help but be amused as I read; being entertained while being educated is surely no bad thing. Diangelo’s Nice Racism followed on from her 2011 White Fragility, which...
Having been very impressed by Fierce Kingdom, I was eager to try another Gin Phillips novel. This one is not quite as thrilling and suspenseful, but the voice is similar, and similarly engaging. The novel focuses on the relationship between...
Yang’s Chinese-immigrant-coming-to-America novel is in some ways similar to others of its genre, in that our protagonist, Ivy Lin, finds herself different from her American peers and longs to fit in. In these ways, Ivy’s tale is like many second...
This book is predicated on the notion of epigenetic inheritance and generational trauma. The idea is that perhaps people can inherit traumas which they themselves did not experience, but which is somehow written into their genes so that it produces...
Having loved Liardet’s first novel, We Must Be Brave, I was of course eagerly anticipating this, her second. And once again, right from the start, I found myself in the hands of a skilled storyteller. This novel was set in...
This is a rather charming novel although not entirely novel in material, about immigrants to the USA. The novel show cases immigrants from the Dominican Republic who have moved to New York in search of a better life, income, and...
Having been very impressed by Abbott’s The End of Everything, I was thrilled to get hold of another of her novels. This one is about ballet and ballerinas. Not a world I know anything about, but Abbott is a consummately...
Having read and loved all Kamila Shamsie’s novels, I was thrilled to get my hands on her latest, Best of Friends. Even better, the blurb suggested it was going to be a read similar to Kartography, one of Shamsie’s earlier...
This is a fun read, but not to be taken entirely seriously. It starts with an introduction of the vast cast, of Cyril Pennington’s five children and their mothers. His eldest and youngest, Nikisha and Prynce have the same Jamaican...
This is one of those utterly charming books which conjure up a particular place and time so well that it transports the reader into that world. Set in the Appalachian mountains, this novel depicts a very deprived community in Baines...
There have been increasing numbers of Koreans writers in English in this century, and there is no doubt that they are collectively conveying a very distinct identity for the Korean diaspora in fiction. There are themes common to many immigrant...
The book cover has a wonderful evocative image, of a lone sailing ship on wide open seas under a massive, looming sky which takes up four fifths of the image. The colour of the skies are ominous above, with massive...
Debuting with An Atlas of Impossible Longings (2008), Roy has steadily published 5 novels over about 14 years; The Earth Spinner in 2022 is her most recent. Each of her novels have been of good quality, well written, non-stereotypical, full...
This book starts off with an interesting scenario, that our protagonist, Alison, on a dark, rainy night after a party, having taken the wrong route home and now slightly lost, pulled out into a four way intersection, the other car...
This latest Maggie O’Farrell novel is once again a work of historical fiction, like Hamnet, and even more riveting. Now the reader finds themselves in the mid-1500s, Renaissance Italy. Our protagonist is Lucrezia, fifth child of Cosimo D’Medici of Florence....
A multitude of Austen silhouettes
1.5 millions tons per second
Divinity or deception?
Separated sisters “are like a woman and her reflection, doomed to stay on opposite sides of a pond”
A chronicle of UK diversity
Yangban and Ssangnom
How strange a world that one’s equal must argue for one’s equality
Rape and genocide
Slices of history
Undignified distortion of a classic character
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