In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses - and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread lace, had their toy spinning wheels of polished oak - there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain palid undersized men, who, … Continue reading Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe | George Eliot
Scraps. That's all I got. Fragments that made no sense without the words before or the words after. The Dictionary of Lost Words was such a huge success for Pip Williams and Affirm Press that I am sure they both approached her next book with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. I had the good … Continue reading The Bookbinder of Jericho | Pip Williams #AWWhistoricalfiction
When I recall the first time I met Violet, it embarrasses me. I hold the memories up to the light and think - did it really happen like this? And even if it did, why not tell it differently? More generously? Why don't I pretend, even to myself? There's nobody left to know, nobody who … Continue reading Cursed Bread | Sophie Mackintosh #UKfiction
November 1961 Back in 1961, when women wore shirtwaist dresses and joined garden clubs and drove legions of children around in seatbeltless cars without giving it a second thought; back before anyone knew there'd be a sixties movement, much less one that its participants would spend the next sixty years chronicling; back when the big … Continue reading Lessons in Chemistry | Bonnie Garmus #USfiction
Glaston had been in the doldrums for forty years when I arrived. Not so much dead or dying as undecided. Worn down by branch closures and businesses leaving, by farming changes and the fickleness of markets; held up by a solid past and the confidence of those who saw beauty in it. It's streets are … Continue reading Glass Houses: A Novel | Anne Coombs #AWWfiction
On the last day of her life, when she was two hundred and forty-seven years old, the blind poet, miracle worker and prophetess Pampa Kampana completed her immense narrative poem about Bisnaga and buried it in a clay post sealed with wax in the heart of the ruined Royal Enclosure, as a message to the … Continue reading Victory City | Salman Rushdie #historicalfiction
By midnight all was blaze and disintegration. A group of soldiers standing on the hill watched with indecent pleasure. The wind locals called the Vardaris blasted from the north, puffed minarets into candles and monuments to blocks of gold. A whoosh of flame - shaped paisley in its exotic unfurling - caused some spontaneously, shamelessly, … Continue reading Salonika Burning | Gail Jones #AWWfiction
Voss Readalong November 2022 Opening Lines: "There is a man here, miss, asking for your uncle," said Rose. And stood breathing. I love this opening. I can just see Rose, the hard-working, impatient, put-upon servant being asked to do something she doesn't normally have to do on a Sunday, and doing it huffily and with … Continue reading Voss | Patrick White #ReadtheNobels
The Sun Walks Down | Fiona McFarlane (2022) The boy met a god by the hollow tree. ‘Go away,’ said the boy, and the god, formless, passes on in the direction of the red hill. I believe I have just read my favourite and best book of 2022. Although I am a little reluctant to … Continue reading The Sun Walks Down | Fiona McFarlane #AWWfiction
Trian's stomach growls. He's not twenty yet, still growing, and always hungry. When I first heard about Emma Donoghue's book, Haven, I thought it would not be for me. Even though it was historical fiction, it was three monks alone on an island in Ireland. The religious life holds very little interest for me, so … Continue reading Haven | Emma Donoghue #BookReview
As I've been reading so many chunksters this year, novellas have proven to be the perfect inbetween palate cleansers. The current ones are both from 2022 and both new releases. One is from Australia and one is from Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid (on his website he says that he now spends his time between Lahore, … Continue reading #MiniReviews – the Novella edition
1950 "I'm your brother," he said, holding his cap in both hands. Book two of the Edith Trilogy, Dark Palace finished as the aftermath of WWII gave birth to the brand new United Nations. Book three, Cold Light sees us jumping forward four years to Canberra, Australia. 1950's Canberra. A city that was only conceived … Continue reading Cold Light | Frank Moorhouse #EdithReadalong
It was hard not to feel that Paris was the place. My response to The Paris Bookseller has been complicated. I was keen to read it thanks to the blurb which told me it had a Paris setting, a bookshop and Sylvia Beach. That should have been enough. But it wasn't. The writing was dull … Continue reading The Paris Bookseller | Kerri Maher #USAfiction
Geneva, on the night of October 15, in the year of 1931...Edith and her friend, Jeanne, found themselves in the dining room of the Hôtel des Bergues - Geneva's best - wining and dining in a grand, exuberant, and stately manner. One of the things I fear most when reading a series is the lengthy recap. In … Continue reading Dark Palace | Frank Moorhouse #EdithReadalong
The Edith Readalong has been my priority of late. But before I got started with it, I was determined to finish a few of the half read books by my bed which included a trip to Nigeria, dabbling with some poetry and a peek inside a leper colony. Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, … Continue reading June Mini Reviews
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