Archive for 'Book Review' Category
‘Elfland’ by Freda Warrington
It’s an indication of quite how behind I am with my reviews that I’m only now writing and posting my thoughts on Freda Warrington’s . This was February’s pick for the Women of Fantasy Book Club hosted by Jawas Read, Too and I finished it back on 14th February. It was a rather appropriate [...]
‘Marie’ by Madeleine Bourdouxhe
One of my aims for this year is to try to read things which I might not normally pick. French modernist literature features incredibly low on on the list of types of book I usually select (nor for that matter, modernism in any language). Consequently I have no idea how I ended up with by [...]
‘The Final Reckoning’ by Robin Jarvis
I’ve recently mentioned how much I enjoy Robin Jarvis’ writing now that I’m reading his Deptford Mice Trilogy as an adult, and The Crystal Prison ended on such a cliffhanger that I had to go on and read the final book in the trilogy, ominously entitled , soon afterwards. In The Final Reckoning the mice find themselves [...]
‘A Month in the Country’ by J. L. Carr
Although I’m usually pretty good about writing reviews for books shortly after I finish them, I’ve fallen rather behind recently and find myself faced with a stack of ten books which have been read but not yet reviewed. At the top of that pile is J. L. Carr’s short novella and it is reminding me [...]
‘Wolfwatching’ by Ted Hughes
If you were to ask me to name my favourite poet, I would have a very hard time naming just one, as I read different people for different things. I read Robert Browning for his amazing dramatic monologues; John Donne for his fiery passion, whether holy or secular; W. B. Yeats for his mysticism and [...]
‘The Crystal Prison’ by Robin Jarvis
I remember reading Robin Jarvis’ Deptford Histories Trilogy when I was younger and being utterly, deliciously terrified by them. They were books that I would only read with my back placed firmly against a wall so that I could be absolutely sure that nothing was sneaking up behind me waiting to grab me. I’ve never [...]
‘Dark Star Safari’ by Paul Theroux
When I started out at university, the people I met instantly divided themselves into two groups: those who started conversations with the immortal phrase, “On my gap year…” and those who didn’t. The gap year people had inevitably spent at a goodly proportion of this year out of education travelling in Africa/South America/Asia, had quite [...]
‘Try Anything Twice’ by Jan Struther
Jan Struther is best known as the author of the short novel, . However, during Virago Reading Week I posted about a fascinating notethat I had found taped inside a copy of Jan Struther’s which I acquired from a second hand book stall, and consequently I had to read this one first. I actually finished this [...]
‘We Had It So Good’ by Linda Grant
Needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled when I found out that Virago, my favourite publishers, had decided to launch a book club this year. For one reason or another I’m not particularly good at reading contemporary fiction, tending to stick to older books, and this seemed like a good way of broadening my horizons [...]
’84, Charing Cross Road’ and ‘The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street’ by Helene Hanff
I’m not sure why I’m so biased against non-fiction books, as I always seem to enjoy them whenever I can finally bring myself to read one. Whatever the reason, I don’t tend to pick one up unless I actively decide to do so, and so one of my bookish resolutions this year is to read [...]