Archives by Tag 'Fiction'
Review: ‘The Last Time They Met’ by Anita Shreve
Title: The Last Time They Met Author: Anita Shreve Published: Abacus, 2001, pp. 360 Genre: Fiction Blurb: When Linda Fallon and Thomas Janes meet at a writers’ festival in Toronto, it is the first time they have seen each other for twenty-six years. Theirs is a story bound by the irresistible pull of true passion [...]
Review: ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess
Title: A Clockwork Orange Author: Anthony Burgess Published: William Heinemann Ltd. for the Independent’s Banned Books series, 2007, pp. 158 Genre: Dystopian fiction Blurb: It’s the near future. In an unnamed city (London? Berlin? Prague?) Alex and his teenage droogs are on the prowl, spending their evenings looking for ultra-violence, rape, even murder. There’s a price [...]
Review: ‘Lady Oracle’ by Margaret Atwood
Title: Lady Oracle Author: Margaret Atwood Published: Virago Press, 1990, pp. 345 Genre: General fiction Blurb: From fat girl to thin, from red hair to mud brown, from London to Toronto, from Polish count to radical husband, from writer of romances to distinguished poet — Joan Foster is utterly confused by her life of multiple [...]
Review: ‘Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day’ by Winifred Watson
Title: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day Author: Winifred Watson Published: Persephone Books, 2008, pp. 234 Genre: Early twentieth century fiction Blurb: Miss Pettigrew is a down-on-her-luck, middle-aged governess sent by her employment agency to work for a nightclub singer rather than a household of unruly children. Over a period of 24 hours her life [...]
Review: ‘The Stone Book Quartet’ by Alan Garner
The four books which make up this volume were first published individually. “As the stories grow into one story, so one’s awareness of the emblems and symbols deepens! Garner binds the reader to him and he shows us the author working with language to make his book as his characters worked with stone and iron. [...]
Review: ‘Death and the Penguin’ by Andrey Kurkov
Victor is depressed: his lover has dumped him, his short stories are too short and the light has gone off in his dingy apartment. His only companion is Misha, the penguin he rescued from Kiev’s Zoo, when it couldn’t feed the animals anymore. Misha is the silent witness to Victor’s despair. Misha joins in his [...]
Review: ‘The Cigarette Girl’ by Carol Wolper
Elizabeth West is twenty-eight, which means she’s just entered The Zone–that seven-year span in a woman’s life when the pressure to find Mr. Right is at its most intense. For Elizabeth, however, the quest is not about Mr. Right so much as it is about Mr. Maybe. And on some nights, all she’s looking for [...]
Review: ‘Mrs Shakespeare’ by Robert Nye
Writing her memoirs seven years after her husband’s death, Anne Hathaway reminisces about her now-famous husband, recalling in particular that week in April, 1594, when the still-struggling poet and playwright invited her to London to celebrate his thirtieth birthday, and what happened to her in a certain strange bed in his lodgings above a fishmonger’s [...]
Review: ‘The Breaking of the Shell’ by Barry Durdant-Hollamby
When a horrible tragedy strikes during an innocent childhood game, six year old Alexander Baker’s life is changed forever. It will be many years before the outcome of that day is finally discovered – with consequences that will not only help Alexander to heal his deepest wounds, but also engage him in a process that [...]
Review: ‘Ithaka’ by Adele Geras
Many years have passed since the end of the Trojan War, and Penelope is still waiting for her husband, Odysseus, to return home. The city of Ithaka is overrun with uncouth suitors from the surrounding islands who are vying to win Penelope’s hand in marriage, thereby gaining control of the land. When a naked, half-drowned [...]