It’s still difficult to be sure I’ve properly understood Venomous Lumpsuckers by Ned Beauman and I say that after reading various press reviews of the book, re-reading parts of the text several times and talking it over with others who’ve also managed to soldier through to its bleakly depressing end. … More Chasing the Lumpsucker
Buy Off Course now Aballonia. 25th century. Famine is ravaging the universe. And journalist Cathy Prior’s world is in a mess too, with her long-term lover saying he’s leaving her, complaining she drinks too much. For inexplicable reasons, crops everywhere are failing, millions are dying; only the ultra-rich can afford enough to eat. Unlike more … More Off Course stumbles into life
Some things never change. Even in the age of Twitterati and social media, female friendship can remain as deceptive and fraught as ever, or so Yellowface shows us, foundering on the rocks of personal ambition and betrayal. June, the narrator of Kuang’s Yellowface, and her ‘friend’ Athena are both highly educated writers, recent Yale graduates … More Friendship can’t beat ambition
By Nell Fowler Orphaned heroine H spends most of this novel fighting to survive life in 17th century London, making a gutsy if slightly unbelievable protagonist as she battles fire, plague, rape, childbirth, heartache, prostitution and evil, thieving relatives with good humour and vim. The engaging H needs all the courage she can muster when … More Decoding the Strange Adventures of H
The Secret History, Donna Tartt, Penguin, pp559, originally published September 16, 1992 The idea behind this site is it allows me to write about titles that are new to me, as well as revisit ones read in the past. The Secret History is a novel that falls into both camps for me. I’m writing about … More Not-so-secret history?
Loving the actual, physical book just as much as the words and meaning of The Riddle of the Sands. “Beautifully produced with gilt edges, a ribbon marker, bespoke illustrated cover and real cloth binding,” promise publishers Pan Macmillan. They don’t let us down. It’s the early 20th century. Sardonic civil servant Carruthers is finding it … More Riddle of the Sands
Women Talking by Miriam Toews, August 2018, Alfred A. Knopf Women Talking, [15], 2022, director Sarah Polley, scriptwriters Sarah Polley and Miriam Toews In both the film and book of this name, the women do rather more than just talk. Which is good, considering the horrors they’re facing. Yet you can’t help but sympathise deeply … More Women doing rather more than just talk
Nineteenth century London and modern-day Appalachia don’t sound like they have much in common. After all, there’s two hundred years and several thousand miles between them, with different mores, linguistic idioms and politics only heightening the apparent differences. Yet Demon Copperhead shows how suffocating poverty works pretty much the same wherever it occurs, regardless of … More Demon Copperhead’s many houses offer no real home
Marina Hyde and Jonathan Freedland, Guardian Live, 1st June 2023 A relief to have a laugh about modern politics. The two Guardian columnists entertained us royally by making fun of our esteemed leaders, surely the best way of cutting demons, gorgons and other assorted monsters down to size. What just happened, asks Hyde? ‘She is the … More What just happened?
It was a shock to discover last week that the poet and translator Richard McKane died a few years back, in 2016. I didn’t know Richard well; he taught me Russian for a few months in the mid-nineties but we kept in touch for some years afterwards and he was an exceptional man, someone I’ve … More An exceptional man
Helen Fowler Writer 