I would love to run a bookshop. By which I mean I would love to live in one, arranging the books just so, dipping in and out of my favourite tomes, discovering new authors and titles as part of my job – what bliss it all seems! But of course, the reality would be rather […]
Snap decisions can be dangerous. We never meet Eileen Bright. Instead, we begin with a hot, airless car and her three small children: Jack, Joy and Merry. They fuss and bicker exactly as you would expect, but underneath their casual cruelties there is a deep fog of unease: their mother went to get help, but […]
It’s the mother of a missing child’s most cherished wish: the child, returned. But what if you had doubts? What if your long-lost daughter wasn’t being completely honest about the circumstances surrounding her abduction? What if you started to wonder if your daughter – your real daughter – might be dead after all? Who might […]
I love curling up with a good book, whatever the season. You might find me on a sun lounger in summer or on a park bench in Autumn, but you’ll never find me without a book in my hand and another in my bag. (You never know when you’ll get Bonus Reading Time.) In Winter […]
Sometimes a book simply grips you. Despite the ample distractions provided by an 11 month old baby, a two year old toddler and a demanding annual project, I read this book from start to finish in under 48 hours. (The house may have descended into more chaos and mess than is usual, (yes, worryingly, it […]
Sometimes, our reading choices benefit from external guidance. I began reading ‘The Siege’ out of a vague sense of obligation; I ended it with a sense of gratitude – to the author, who made what could have been Yet Another War Story beautiful and genuinely moving, and to the acquaintance who insisted I would enjoy […]
Having previously read and enjoyed Grenville’s 2006 novel ‘The Secret River’ I was pleased to be given ‘The Lieutenant’ as a book group read. Grenville is an Australian author whose fiction has won national and international awards. The copy I read was an uncorrected proof copy. What’s it about? Daniel Rooke is an outsider from […]