The latest addition to my website is Marina Warner‘s The Lost Father. Warner is best known as a cultural critic, writing primarily about myth, fairy tales and art. She has recently, for example, criticised Richard Dawkins for dismissing the power of fairy tales. However, she is also a fine novelist. This novel is told by … Read more
I have now read all the novels on the Baileys Womens Prize for fiction shortlist. As a reminder, they are; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah Hannah Kent: Burial Rites Jhumpa Lahiri: The Lowland Audrey Magee: The Undertaking Eimear McBride: A Girl is a Half-formed Thing Donna Tartt: The Goldfinch Cutting straight to the chase, there is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Eimear McBride‘s A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. McBride has been hailed as a genius for this novel and it has received quite a few positive reviews, though some less positive. I am afraid that I am in the latter camp. It is written in a stream of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hannah Kent‘s Burial Rites. Though Kent is Australian, this novel is set entirely in Iceland, where Kent spent some time. It tells the story, based on an actual historical incident, of the murder of two men at a remote farm. Three people have been arrested and found guilty … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Audrey Magee‘s The Undertaking, one of the books on the shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. This is Magee’s first novel and a fine novel it is. The hero is Peter Faber, a German soldier in World War II, who is fighting on the Russian front. He … Read more
The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction have launched #ThisBook, where they have asked nineteen well-known (in the UK but probably not elsewhere) women to nominate the novel written by a woman that most impacted, shaped or changed your life. The results are interesting, if not surprising. With the possible exception of Helen Forrester‘s autobiography, there … Read more
My bath-time reading of the Guardian Literary Review recently involved reading D J Taylor’s interesting article, rather badly titled Literary hero to zero (I am guessing that the title is a sub’s and not Taylor’s.) However, before getting to the article, I am going to go off on a tangent, which will lead to another … Read more
I have been following with some interest the #readwomen2014 proposal made by writer/illustrator/blogger Joanna Walsh. (She also wrote an article in The Guardian). It has attracted a lot of interest around the world. It started with cartes de voeux bookmarks and has since blossomed into a huge Internet meme. Flavorwire has produced a 50 books … Read more
As has been extensively reported Canadian writer and professor David Gilmour (no, not that David Gilmour) has made a bit of fool of himself, basically saying that there are no interesting women, Canadian and Chinese writers and saying that he only reads Serious heterosexual guys. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy-guys. Henry Miller. Philip … Read more
The latest addition to my website is A. M. Homes‘ May We Be Forgiven, the winner of the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Most people, including me, thought that Bring Up the Bodies would win and were quite surprised that this novel won. While I very much enjoyed Bring Up the Bodies, I think May … Read more