Having been impressed by Silver Sparrow (2011) and An American Marriage (2018), I sought out Jones’s second novel, The Untelling (2005) (her debut novel is Leaving Atlanta, 2002). This novel once again features a young, black woman as protagonist, and...
Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins had a delightfully unexpected plot: it featured Richard Burton, the filming of Cleopatra in Italy in 1963, the 2010s in Hollywood and reality TV, a proposed screenplay about the Donner Party , and the Pacific Northwest...
One of those books you are glad your bookclub chose so that you read it! Trevor Noah is of course a well known public figure; this book gave a very comprehensive understanding of the South Africa he grew up in,...
There’s a lot going on in Strangers and Cousins. There are family dynamics: Bennie and Walter, parents of four children ranging in age from 5 to 22, are preparing for the wedding of their oldest, Clem(entine), who is marrying her...
It seems to have taken me four decades of reading, to come on a startling realisation midway through this novel, exactly why I so value the imaginative, innovative, skillfully crafted writing styles when reading novels, above the pedestrian and prosaic...
A more topical novel can hardly be imagined, but it is actually mere coincidence that Emma Donoghue’s latest novel is set during the 1918 (“Spanish Flu”) influenza pandemic. She started writing it in October 2018, “inspired by the centenary of...
The carer is 50 year old Mandy, from Solihull, with a Brummie accent, thick body, plain face, and no dress sense. She is working-class; which as Moggach would have it, watches daytime TV and goes to Nandos. She is hired...
1 stocky man who abuses his wife 1 small tender wife 1 medium-size tough woman in love with the wife 1 double-barrelled shotgun 1 small karoo town marinated in secrets 1 red-hot New Yorker 2 cool policemen 1 handful of...
I don’t read many Young Adult (YA) novels, but if they are this good, I need to read more! Am glad my book club chose this book because otherwise, I may not have read it, particularly given its subject matter...
~ Afterlife, by Julia Alvarez ~ Julia Alvarez writes wonderfully about Dominican immigrant families, and especially about the difficult, loving, annoying, funny parts of intra-family interactions. The bickering, affectionate relationship of her four first-generation immigrant sisters in How the Garcia...
Brower has collected stories from the staff who serve within the White House for this book, spanning 5 decades, 10 administrations, and from all ranks, from butlers, maids, chefs, florists, doormen – and also from former first ladies, and first...
~ The Senator’s Wife, by Sue Miller ~ Sue Miller’s novel follows two very different women who happen to live next door to one another in a university town. And their two very different marriages. Meri and Nathan are a...
~ Autumn, by Ali Smith ~ This is not going to be a plot-informed review, because this novel is not really about the plotline. Yes, I can tell you the protagonist is Elisabeth Demand, an art history lecturer, who lives...
Novels about biochemists are rare. Novels about gay black biochemists are surely nonexistent, until now; in this slender niche appears Real Life, a truly unusual first novel. Set over the course of a long weekend in an unnamed midwestern American...
~ The High Mountains of Portugal, by Yann Martel ~ Right from the outset, it is clear this is going to be a book with many hidden gems, and massive charm. It starts with Tomas decides to walk. p3 This...
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