The latest addition to my website is Jonathan Franzen‘s Purity. Inevitably, this book has caused much controversy and has been condemned for being sexist (which it partially is but no more than thousands of other novels), problematic, self-indulgent and probably all sorts of other crimes. Ignore the buzz and read the book. It is not … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kathryn Davis‘ The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf. This is a first-class novel about the nature of art (in this case music) and how it intertwines with life. The story is told by Frances Thorn, a woman who, accordingly to her family, disgraced herself and is now … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mark Danielewski‘s The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May. This is apparently the first of a twenty-seven volume series, with the next volume appearing in October of this year. This one takes 880 pages essentially to outline a plot which consists of twelve-year old epileptic girl … Read more
The latest addition to my website is George Packer‘s The Unwinding: Thirty Years of American Decline. Though not a novel Die Zeit described it as the first Great American novel of the 21st century. While it is entirely factual, it is consciously modelled on John Dos Passos‘ U.S.A.. It tells the stories of variety of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marilynne Robinson‘s Lila, the third book in Robinson’s Gilead trilogy. This one, of course, tells the story of Lila, whom we have met in the previous two novels as the (much younger) wife of the seventy-seven year old Reverend Ames and mother of his seven-year old son, Robby. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marilynne Robinson‘s Home, the second book in her Gilead trilogy. In the first book – Gilead – the Reverend John Ames told his tale and mentioned the son of his very good friend the Reverend Robert Boughton, Jack. Unlike his seven siblings, Jack had been a wilful, badly … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marilynne Robinson‘s Gilead. This is another first-class novel from Marilynne Robinson and, in fact, the first of a trilogy of novels, set in Gilead, Iowa, about the Ames and Boughton families, where the paterfamilias, in each case, is a professional religious minister. This book is narrated by John … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marilynne Robinson‘s Housekeeping. This is, of course, a book I should have read years ago but, with her new book just out, now was the time to do it. Apart from the fact, that this is one of the foremost US novels of the latter part of the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Paula Gunn Allen‘s The Woman Who Owned The Shadows. Native American authors still get something of a short shrift in the US pantheon, which is a pity as there are some very fine Native American novels. This is one of them, telling the story of Ephanie Atencio, a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Joanna Scott‘s De Potter’s Grand Tour. There has been some excitement this summer with all the new novels coming out late summer/autumn. These include novels by Martin Amis, Peter Carey, Michel Faber, Richard Ford, Howard Jacobson, Kate Mosse, Haruki Murakami, Ian McEwan, David Mitchell, Joseph O’Neill, Marilynne Robinson, … Read more