The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
Belatedly I have just discovered the wonderful literature of this deceased author Walter Tevis. Having ignored the recent Netflix series made of the novel (though…
General Fiction
Mr Wilder and Me by Jonathan Coe
Jonathan Coe mixes reality with fiction in this book which is an unapologetic love-letter to the titular Billy Wilder, one of the greatest film directors…
Still Life by Sarah Winman
Do not be deterred by the lack of punctuation (Winman uses no quotation marks for dialogue) or by the strangely truncated sentences. Because once you’ve…
Daylight by David Baldacci
Historically this author would keep sets of characters each within their own series, often finishing their story arc (forever) after five instalments. Happily Mr Baldacci…
Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
In 1914, a ten year old Margery Benson falls in love with a beetle. In a booked called Incredible Creatures, her father shows her a…
The Eighth Life (for Brilka) by Nino Haratischvili
The Eighth Life (for Brilka), by Nino Haratischvili, is 933 pages long (do not allow this to discourage you). This page count is only the…
The Dressmaker’s Secret by Rosalie Ham
Whilst this reader felt a follow up to The Dressmaker was not required (the ending being satisfactory enough and the heroine riding off into the…
The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan
Richard Flanagan has the soul of a poet and it is reflected in the prose of The Living Sea of Waking Dreams. His use of…
The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson
The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson is a slap-in-the-face call to curb our excesses before the earth says “enough” and turns on us; and it’s…
All among the Barley by Melissa Harrison
All Among the Barley may be set on a Sussex farm in 1933, but the book explores a lot more than mere nostalgia for bygone…
The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
In The Weekend by Charlotte Wood, Jude, Wendy, Adele and Sylvie have been friends for over forty years, since their shared days in Oxford. Now…