Archive for 'Book Review' Category
Review: ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ by John Fowles
Title: Author: John Fowles Published: Pan Books, 1987, pp. 399. Originally published 1969. Genre: Historical fiction Blurb:In this contemporary, Victorian-style novel Charles Smithson, a nineteenth-century gentleman with glimmerings of twentieth-century perceptions, falls in love with enigmatic Sarah Woodruff, who has been jilted by a French lover. (Goodreads.com) When, where and why: I think my mother [...]
Review: ‘Tales from the Country Matchmaker’ by Patricia Warren
Title: Author: Patricia Warren Published: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006, pp. 248. Originally published 2003. Genre: Memoir Blurb: Since she founded the Farmers’ and Country Bureau from her farmhouse in the Peak District more than twenty years ago, Patricia has been helping love to blossom the length and breadth of rural England. She has hundreds of [...]
Review: ‘The Red Tent’ by Anita Diamant
Title: Author: Anita Diamant Published: Pan Macmillan, 2002, pp. 386. Originally published 1997 Genre: Historical fiction Blurb: Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her fate is merely hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the verses of the Book of Genesis that recount the life of Jacob and his infamous dozen sons. [...]
Review: ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Title: Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, trans. Gregory Rabassa Published: Penguin, 1998, pp. 422. Originally published 1967 Genre: Latin American fiction Blurb: One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the magical story of the Buendia family, who love, lie, fight and rule for a century in Macondo, their settlement in the South American jungle. Part exotic paradise, [...]
Review: ‘Fireworks’ by Angela Carter
Title: Author: Angela Carter Published: Penguin, 1987, pp. 133. Originally published 1974 Genre: Short stories Blurb: In each of these mesmerising tales is a search for heightened sensitivity. Reality is left behind. Filtering ordinary experience through her hallucinatory imagination, Angela Carter exposes the subterranean desires and obsessive fears lurking in the unconscious. Her characters are [...]
Review: ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe
Title: Author: Chinua Achebe Published: Heinemann, 1986, pp. 152. Originally published 1958 Genre: African fiction Blurb: The story is the tragedy of Okonkwo, an important man in the Igbo tribe in the days when white men were first appearing on the scene… Mr Achebe’s very simple but excellent novel tells of the series of events [...]
Review: ‘The High Lord’ by Trudi Canavan
Title: Author: Trudi Canavan Published: Orbit, 2007, pp. 674. Originally published 2003. Genre: Fantasy Blurb: In the city of Imardin, where those who wield magic wield power, a young street-girl, adopted by the Magicians’ Guild, finds herself at the centre of a terrible plot that may destroy the entire world… Sonea has learned much at [...]
Review: ‘Stardust’ by Neil Gaiman
Title: Author: Neil Gaiman Published: Headline Review, 2005, pp. 214. Originally published 1999. Genre: Fantasy Blurb: In the sleepy English countryside at the dawn of the Victorian era, life moves at a leisurely pace in the tiny town of Wall. Young Tristran Thorn has lost his heart to the beautiful Victoria Forester, but Victoria is [...]
Review: ‘The Lollipop Shoes’ by Joanne Harris
Title: Author: Joanne Harris Published: Black Swan, 2008, pp. 572. Originally published 2007. Genre: Fiction Blurb: Seeking refuge and anonymity in the cobbled streets of Montmartre, Yanne and her daughters, Rosette and Annie, live peacefully, if not happily, above their little chocolate shop. Nothing unusual marks them out; no red sachets hang by the door. [...]
Review: ‘The Pillars of the Earth’ by Ken Follett
Title: Author: Ken Follett Published: Pan, 1999, pp. 1076. Originally published 1989 Genre: Historical fiction Blurb: 1123. A time of violent civil war, famine, religious strife and battles for royal succession And a time when man’s greatest skills and aspirations gave birth to a daring and impossible dream — the building of the magnificent cathedral [...]