editor’s choice
‘In a world that is increasingly dark and aggressive, I think making beauty is an act of rebellion and that’s what I’m trying to do really,’ says author and illustrator Jackie Morris of The Unwindings. And she does it most successfully in this gorgeously produced book. A pillow book, compact enough to be … Continue readings
Tags : Jackie Morris illustration, Jackie Morris The Lost Words, Jackie Norris, Robert Macfarlane Jackie Morris, The Unwinding, Unbound Books
When I first heard the premise for Amanda Craig’s new novel, The Golden Rule, I was intrigued. Two women meet on a train, talk and agree to kill each other’s husbands. It’s Strangers on the Train revisited surely? As a huge Hitchcock and Highsmith fan that’s wonderful. It’s even more so to discover the … Continue readings
Tags : Amanda Craig, books set in Cornwall, Hitchcock, literary crime, Little Brown, Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train, The Golden Rule
I was looking at the book jacket of Damian Barr’s You Will Be Safe Here a few days back, when I reread it, and was struck by how many adjectives have been applied to it by so many great writers, so you’ll forgive me if I repeat some of them in the course of … Continue readings
Tags : Bloomsbury, Boer War, British concentration camps, Damian Barr, military schools, modern literature, Scottish writing, South Africa, South African Boer War, You Will Be Safe Here
Every year I get myself a present from my late mama. Something that’s meaningful, occasionally life changing, like the flat I bought and moved into on my birthday four years ago. Mostly though it’s a set of charcoals or a plant. This year it’s Charlie Mackesy’s The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the … Continue readings
Tags : Antoine de Saint-Exupery, charlie mackesy, Ebury Books, inspirational books, Penguin Books, The boy the mole the fox and the horse, the little prince
I was looking at the book jacket of Damian Barr’s You Will Be Safe Here a few days back, when I reread it, and was struck by how many adjectives have been applied to it by so many great writers, so you’ll forgive me if I repeat some of them in the course of … Continue readings
Tags : Bloomsbury, Boer War, British concentration camps, Damian Barr, military schools, modern literature, Scottish writing, South Africa, South African Boer War, You Will Be Safe Here
She saw into cubicles, sounds of birth and tears and life. She saw shells of people, so empty she knew they would not recover. Cops led bad men with tattooed arms and bloodied faces. She smelled the drunks, the bleach, the vomit and shit.” We love Chris Whitaker. We love his writing. So, … Continue readings
Lynda La Plante is one of those names that people know. A former actress turned-screenwriter and novelist, La Plante is behind some of the most successful TV series globally, including Widows and Prime Suspect, which made her name internationally. Buried, the author’s latest venture, published tomorrow in the UK, is a nod to … Continue readings
Tags : Buried, Crime Writers Association, DC Jack Warr, Dolly Rawlins, Jack Warr #1, La Plante, Lynda La Plante, Widows, Zaffre
There’s a beauty to Christy Lefteri’s prose that binds us to The Beekeeper of Aleppo from the very first page. Beautifully rendered, it’s a tale of our time, the refugee’s story, of the struggle to triumph over the greatest of adversities, of the search for light in the darkest of places. Lefteri, herself … Continue readings
Tags : bees, Christy Lefteri, civll war, displacement, refugees, Syria, Syrian refugees, The Beekeeper of Aleppo
When you read a Jill Mansell novel you know you’re in a pair of safe hands. Overflowing with charming characters, interesting plot threads and great locations, with more than a sprinkle of romance, wit and comic relief, Mansell’s books are tightly written and wonderfully realised. Her latest work, It Started with a Secret, thankfully, … Continue readings
Tags : comedy of errors, Cornwall, feel good, Headline, It Started with a Secret, Jill Mansell, Jilly Cooper, romance, romantic drama, St Carys, St Ives
If much-loved literary characters were to come to life, that really would be a dream come true for most book lovers. Not so much so for Charley Sutherland, the protagonist of New Zealander HG Parry’s fictional debut, The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep. Since childhood, Charley has had a special power, one that … Continue readings
Tags : editor's choice, HG Parry, imagination, New Zealand, New Zealand Writer, The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep, The Wild One
We periodically wax lyrical about independent presses and their lists and Karen Sullivan’s Orenda Books has had several such shout outs. She’s a canny publisher with a great eye, and the range and quality of her authors support that. So, no surprise then that wonderful Doug Johnstone’s latest novel, A Dark Matter, is published … Continue readings
Tags : A Dark Matter, Doug Johnstone, Edinburgh, indie presses, Karen Sullivan, Orenda Books, Scottish noir, Scottish writers
Foxfire, Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women is a beautifully produced book, showcasing Sharon Blackie’s rather terrific tales. Drawing on global female folklore and mythology – from the familiar Snow Queen, immortalised by Hans Christian Andersen, to Croatia’s ‘she wolf’, with its similarities to the Celtic selkies, Slavic Baba Yaga, the creator-goddess turned … Continue readings
We love Tom Cox. He’s rapidly become a favourite author, his writing poignant, funny, entertaining. Like many, we first encountered him via his musings on the much missed The Bear and his other fabulous felines. His subject matter is wide-ranging, from music to witches, toads to his shouty dad. His latest book, Ring the … Continue readings
Tags : leaping hares, Meet Tom Cox, Ralph, Ring the Hill, Robert Macfarlane, Shipley, The Bear, Tom Cox, Unbound, Underland
Icon n. – person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration.” ‘ICON’ IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE MOST OVER-USED WORDS in the English language. We apply it with little thought or reason. Yet there are a handful of truly iconic figures – the legend that is … Continue readings
Tags : A–Z of crushes, all about my mother, icon, icons, Judy Garland, music, Susie Boyt, Virago
On 23 June 1919, seven exceptional women gathered at 46 Dover Street in London’s Mayfair to do something that had never been done before – to create a professional organisation dedicated to campaigning for women’s rights. It was the official birth of the Women’s Engineering Society, the fruit of an idea conceived several months … Continue readings
Tags : feminism, feminist history, Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines, suffrage, women's history