Passion
~ Fortune Rocks, by Anita Shreve ~ This is one of Shreve’s older novels and I confess I was not expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. It is also about double the length of most of her...
Books
Lightweight confection
~ Baking cakes in Kigali, by Gaile Parkin ~ Set squarely in Mma Ramotswe territory is Gaile Parkin’s Baking Cakes in Kigali, featuring a plump entrepreneurial African woman who solves human problems along with the cakes she sells. There are...
Shallow Inspection
~ The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country. By Helen Russell ~ This is one of those rather unsatisfying books where your interest in the topic or content keeps you reading, but where the...
Existential Coming-of-Age, with an American Multilingual Twist
Coming-of-age millenial stories must be thick on the ground these days. Without seeking them out, several have come my way in the last few months — two by Sally Rooney, one by Naoise Dolan, and now, Elif Batuman’s The Idiot,...
Double Life
The novel opens with the protagonist, Andrew (Andy) Nocera) being tried in court for being caught “giving a blow job off Interstate 85 one hot summer night”.The sentence is one year’s probation, during which there must be no more arrests,...
Pythons and Politics
Lifelong Florida resident Carl Hiassen has carved himself a unique niche in the 45-odd years he’s been writing novels. Set firmly in his home state, his novels typically feature a wild cast of environmental activists, law personnel, corrupt politicians and...
Complexities of a Marriage
If you ever wanted to get inside a marriage of two mismatched personalities, this is an excellent novel for that experience, in so far as one can ever get ‘inside’ someone else’ marriage. Tyler does an excellent job of somehow...
Foreign Language
Naoise Dolan’s debut novel, Exciting Times, will inevitably be compared to Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Conversations with Friends. Dolan and Rooney are both young female Irish authors, and both write about young female protagonists who are very self-aware, intelligent,...
Delicate passion, enduring stoicism
~ Snow on Falling Cedars. By David Guterson ~ It is surprising just how difficult it can be to review a book that one has liked immensely. The plot of this novel revolves around a trial in 1954 of Kabuo...
Survivor’s Guilt
~ Dear Edward, by Ann Napolitano ~ This well-intentioned novel deals with the aftermath of a tragedy — a plane crash in which only one person survives, an 11-year-old boy called Edward. Edward Adler (known as Eddie), his older brother...
Contrasting Cultures
~ Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland. By Sarah Moss ~ I have so enjoyed all of Moss’ fiction that I bought her non-fiction book without hesitation. And I have not been disappointed. Her careful, thoughtful, skilful writing in...
Secrets and Lies
~ The Mothers. By Brit Bennett ~ This astonishingly assured first novel centers on a black community in a small Southern California town, and specifically, three young people: Nadia Turner, beautiful, smart and unhappy; Luke Sheppard, the pastor’s son; and...
Uneven Landscapes
~ The Lie of the Land. By Amanda Craig ~ Lottie and Quentin, upper-middle class, inveterate Londoners, find themselves forced to move to rural Devon for a year when they realise they cannot yet afford to divorce and sell the...
A richly satisfying re-read
~ A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth ~ It’s been almost three decades since I, and the world, read and loved this novel. Most beloved books get re-read from time to time, but the sheer size (literally. 4.2 lbs on...
The dark side of human nature, superbly portrayed
~ Grotesque, by Natsuo Kirino ~ This is only Kirino’s second book to be translated into English – her first was Out, also a superb piece of writing – although she is well known in Japan as a crime writer....
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