Wry, grim, brilliant
~ Big Sky, by Kate Atkinson ~ How thrilling it is when a new Jackson Brodie novel arrives in the post! Every one of Atkinson’s novels about Brodie, the retired military man turned cop turned private detective, has been a...
Books
A society in transition
~ Celestial Bodies, by Jokha Alharthi ~ This is the first Omani novel I have read; Celestial Bodies, winner of the 2019 Man International Booker seems a good starting point (albeit in translation). First impressions are that this is indeed a very...
Behind every succesful man…
~ The Wife: Book and Movie ~ As a college student at Smith, Joan falls for her married professor, Joe Castleman, fascinated by his brilliance. It kills me to say it, but I was his student when we met. There...
Lives formed in Oxford and Istanbul
~ Three Daughters of Eve, by Elif Shafak ~ An engaging novel, characterised by a distinctive writing style which demonstrates a fine-tuned consciousness and critical awareness. Particularly enjoyable are the author’s acerbic but good tempered observations on Turks, Turkey, and...
No Place Like
~ A House for Mr Misra, by Jaishree Misra ~ Buying or building a house is a fraught exercise for any couple. Peculiar aesthetic preferences are discovered, behaviour under stress is tested, disagreements about location, style and price develop, and...
Privilege and Hardship: The Wives of Raffles
~ Olivia and Sophia, by Rosie Milne ~ This is a version of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles and his two sojourns “Eastward” from the perspective of his two wives, Olivia and Sophia. It is not historically accurate; the author says...
A multitude of Austen silhouettes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that few authors can resist the allure of Jane Austen’s deceptively simple plots. Many retellings of her books have emerged over the years, but (spoiler alert!) few of them come close to the wit,...
A swirling, flowing tale
~ Once Upon a River, by Diane Setterfield ~ As the title suggests, this novel is all about storytelling. Having not as yet had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Setterfield’s best seller, The Thirteenth Wife, I had no...
Pioneer Woman
~ Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Fraser ~ Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little grey house made of logs. Many...
No time for social niceties
~ The Hunger, by Alma Katsu ~ This historical fiction novel tells the story of families of pioneers in wagon trains setting out from Springfield, Illinois, on 15th April 1846, attempting to reach California for a new life. The novel...
Atmospheric Enchantment
~ The Silver Dark Sea, by Susan Fletcher ~ This novel of Fletcher’s has a few distinctive elements in common with some of her other novels, like the House of Glass, and Let Me Tell You About A Man I...
The Iliad: as retold by women
~ The Silence of the Girls, by Pat Barker. ~ It must have been more than 20 years ago when Pat Barker kindly granted me an interview in my MA research. I was then studying her earlier novels in juxtapositon...
Motherhood
~ The Golden State, by Lydia Kiesling ~ Motherhood is tough when money is tight, when the parent is effectively single and has little family support. Yet, as most mothers know, there are private pleasures in a baby’s unique, special...
Intimacy in China: Changing with the times
Xinran is a British Chinese journalist who has lived in UK for more than two decades. She has recorded the stories of literally hundreds of women in China, and given voice to the trials and tribulations, sufferings and sorrows of...
Hockey Madness
~ Beartown/Us Against You, by Fredrik Backman ~ Beartown is a heartbreaking novel about cruelty and sports. The eponymous town in this powerful novel by Fredrik Backman is a remote backwoods place with one focus: its ice hockey team. Boys...
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