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....
Contemporary Irish
~ Grace After Henry – Eithne Shortall ~ I must admit that this is a novel which caught my eye because of its title. It is exactly what it says on the tin – the story of Grace’s life after...
A Tale of Two Sisters
~ My Sister, the Serial Killer. (Oyinkan Braithwaite) ~ A distinctly original addition to the satirical genre, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s first novel is set in her home country of Nigeria. Korede is a capable, accomplished nurse who carries a torch for...
Tall, fair and cute
The first article I read about the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking gave away the ending. I wasn’t planning to watch so it didn’t matter if Sima-from-Mumbai found her clients their perfect match. Then it started. Colleagues from work – they...
Evolving Friendships
~ The Burning Girl, by Claire Messud ~ Published in 2017, this is the most recent of Messud’s novels. I had enjoyed her other novels previously, particularly The Woman Upstairs, but this I think is quite Messud’s best – the...
Inconsistent Quirkiness
~ Where’d You Go, Bernadette. By Maria Semple. ~ The preamble to this novel identifies the protagonist. The first annoying thing is when I ask Dad what he thinks happened to Mom, he always says, “What’s most important is for...
Lively memoir of a colonial childhood
~ Gweilo: Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood, by Martin Booth ~ This is Martin’s Booth memoir written at 64 years of age, about his childhood spent in Hong Kong. His father, an Admiralty civil servant, was posted there when...
Old-fashioned Expat English Enterprises
~ Mum and Dad, by Joanna Trollope ~ Southern Spain. A middle-aged English expatriate couple, Gus and Monica, purchase some land and set up a vineyard. They abandon their oldest children in boarding schools in England, bring the youngest with...
Daawat-e-Ishq: For the Love of Food & Films
Call it a sign of the times. After weeks of baking and cooking, I’ve now moved on to…reading cookbooks. Browsing my collection, Indian cookbooks mostly found on bookstore bargain tables over some 20-30 years, of course, I had to start...
Exquisitely crafted
~ The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides ~ This was an early novel of Eugenides’, written in 1993 (his famous Middlesex was written in 2002; The Marriage Plot and Fresh Complaint in 2011 and 2017 respectively). It is actually quite...
Hate-Watching
~ Indian MatchMaking, on Netflix ~ If the pandemic has already lowered your spirits, I recommend staying well away from ‘Indian MatchMaking’, streaming on Netflix. Its portrayal of the Indian and Indian-American community is thoroughly depressing. The reality TV series...
ISIS Women
Guest House for Young Widows, by Azadeh Moaveni The title is not apt, regretfully, for all its intriguing promise, because the guest house for widows actually only plays a very tiny part in this quite lengthy volume. The guest house...
Life Passages
Good Boy. My Life in Seven Dogs. by Jennifer Finney Boylan What a charming notion, to trace one’s life through the dogs in one’s past. The title of Jennifer Finney Boylan’s novel is immediately captivating to a dog-lover. Within two...
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