Category: fiction
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Book Review: The Testaments
I tried to hold off reading The Testaments, but as the hype built and then the reviews started arriving, I gave in, and read it in two days. Few books besides Harry Potter get the kind of build-up this had, including the major launch in London, the pre-publication Booker nomination, and the endless speculation in the…
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Childhood Reading, or, My Life in Books
I recently read Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan. I, like Mangan, spent most of my childhood reading (though unlike her I did go outside sometimes) and I very much enjoyed being reminded of some wonderful books I had forgotten, especially as my son is reaching the age where he is asking for…
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Book Review: Normal People
Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People, longlisted for the Man Booker prize last year and shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year, is difficult to pin down, I think. The blurb suggests it’s ‘an exquisite love story’, about two people who can’t keep away from each other, but that seems quite reductive to me…
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Just William Turns 100
How can the perennial eleven year old boy, with his tie askew and knees grubby, be 100? The first story of William Brown, by Richmal Crompton, was published in 1919, so I think this should be the year I share these beloved books with my son. The forever in trouble William was my hero throughout…
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Book Review: The Conviction of Cora Burns
There is a considerable amount of interest in the dark side of the nineteenth century, and recently this has manifested itself in neo-Victorian fiction, including novels such as Sarah Moss’s Signs for Lost Children and The Ballroom by Anna Hope. The rapid shifts in cultural interests and anxieties, combined with the growing discipline of psychology,…
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Book Review: Ghost Wall
Ghost Wall is Sarah Moss’s sixth novel, and enthusiasm for her novels – diverse though often historical – seems to be growing, and rightly so. I’ve previously read Bodies of Light and Signs for Lost Children, both set in the nineteenth century though with powerful modern resonances. I’d been looking forward to reading Ghost Wall and was delighted when…
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Book Review: The Power
The Power is Naomi Alderman’s fourth novel, and it won the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction. Science fiction novels don’t normally appeal to me, but the complex gender dynamics and dystopian vision of a gender-switched future sounded interesting, so I read it on holiday and found it a fascinating read. Firstly, it’s well-written, which is…