Murder at an elderly pace
This is a book which sets out to amuse and entertain. And to some extent, it does this well enough, offering a frothy, light read that carefully avoids straying into the frivolous or the trite. It is a whodunnit, but...
Lisa
Shaped and marked by the war in Sri Lanka
As befits a philosophy graduate from Columbia, the novel opens with a contemplation of the notion of time and its elusive nature, before introducing us to Krishan and his home life in Colombo with his mother and aging grandmother. ...
Faith, science and addiction in an immigrant family
Having reading reviews of how harrowing Gyasi’s Homegoing was, I have still not summoned the courage to read it yet, but her second novel has turned out very readable. Our protagonist is Gifty, a second generation Ghanaian immigrant in the...
Rape and genocide
This is such an important book to read, but it hardly needs any warning that it is not bedtime reading. Christina Lamb is a British investigative journalist who travels to many parts of the conflict-ridden world we live in, recording...
Distinct and well-developed characters
When the story first begins, our protagonist, Libby (14), is in a car, sitting in the back with Thomas (18) her older brother, and Ellen (12) her younger sister in the middle. Her mum, Faye, is driving, and eldest sister...
An easy Metro read
It must be admitted that I picked up this book displayed in the New Books section in the library because the blurb at the back said, “A beautiful tale for everyone who likes to end a book with a smile...
The End of the Road?
Once again like her penultimate novel, The Motion of the Body Through Space, Shriver presents us with a couple (though British this time, not American) who are in the mid-later stages of life, as our protagonists. And once again, they...
Italian Introspection
This is a novella (just 157 pages) by Lahiri which she originally wrote in Italian, then translated herself, into English. It has over 45 chapters, so you can guess that each chapter is quite short. In expected Lahiri style, the...
Undignified distortion of a classic character
A fairly avid reader of Sherlock Holmes spin-offs, I am not one to turn up my nose at non-Conan Doyle authored novels utilising the well known, well loved characters of the Holmes brothers, Dr Watson, and Mrs Hubbard. My favourite...
Delightful, and never dull
Such a long title for these 2 short stories, which come to just a little over 100 pages in all. This will not be a review which is demanding or interrogating, because much of the pleasure of reading a Mary...
Atrocity
There are all too few novels written in English on the ‘comfort women’ of the Japanese occupation in Singapore from 1942-1945, so I seized on this one and read it avidly. It certainly tells a very important story, though how...
But never doubt I love
The novel starts by telling us that Hamnet and Hamlet are in fact the same name, entirely interchangeable in Stratford records in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. O’Farrell’s novel is a rewriting of Shakespeare’s life, without ever mentioning...
Charming and distinctive
Although this is one of Toibin’s earlier novels, I had not previously read it; but it felt instantly familiar nevertheless, with his distinctive style. This one is set in Toibin’s own birth county, Wexford, in the southeast of Ireland. It...
Lovable characters described by a born storyteller
I looked for this book because of my huge enjoyment of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, co-authored by Annie Barrows, and her aunt, Marry Anne Shaffer. I just knew Barrows would be a good storyteller, and I...
Code of Silence
The title of this book comes from the IRA’s mantra that all its cadres are taught that when captured and questioned, they are to stonewall, to say nothing. It also is at the heart of one of the many stories...
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