reviews

When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall I heard the author talking about how the idea for this book came to her after imagining what a waste motorways were on cars, and how such wide, level, often-elevated roads would be…

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Richard Pevear (Translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator) War and Peace is one of those books that I think everyone thinks they ought to read, and probably means to read, but never gets round to it….

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll Hard as it might be to believe, but I don’t think I have ever read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland before. It is one of those books and those…

Slade House by David Mitchell Narrow, tall-sided alleys are made for stories, and it is in just such a narrow, tall-sided alley that this dark fantasy/magical realism story starts. Don’t be put off by the ‘horror’ label that seems to…

A Winter Book by Tove Jansson This book is impossible not to like. The only reason why I gave it four stars and not five is because, being a collection of short stories, whilst there are many that are outstanding,…

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson This was one of those unexpected finds. I had seen Tove Jansson’s A Winter Book advertised in a bookstore window, and enticed by the promise of the cover and a collection of short stories…

The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell This is a beautiful book by just about any measure that you look at it. In a generation of ebooks and audiobooks there are some stories that deserve to be read in their printed…

The Girl Savage by Katherine Rundell I loved Katherine Rundell’s Rooftoppers with its simple genius and originality. I remember looking at her debut book, Girl Savage and not being sure about it. Indeed I only bought it when I did…

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer “It didn’t really come from nowhere. Nothing comes from nowhere.” I didn’t so much as pick this book because of the cover, but because of the cover designer, who I know. The…

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games books are definitley compulsive, if deeply, deeply disturbing reading. I must be virtually alone in only having seen the first movie, and so I have been able to read this as book…

May Queen Killers by Lorna Dounaeva With May Day celebrations and small village life, you might think that this was going to be a Midsummer Murders-esque cozy mystery, but a cozy mystery this is not. The village in question is…

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon I almost only gave this book four stars down to the physical and audible queaziness that I felt whilst reading four pages exactly halfway through this book (I say reading, but it was…

The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge This is a book about secrets and lies, and the truths they both can conceal. Set in Victorian England, on a remote island, this is a dark mystery that concerns science, academic research, and…

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan This is a book of big, powerful themes told through lilting, poetic language, but at its heart its a family struggle of thwarted ambition and family heritage. The story is set in a world that,…

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke I like this book, but it is not a page turner. It reads like a Dickensian, Victorian drama, but Dickens it is not. I feel bad for not loving this book from…

The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig This is a dark and disturbing, distopian vision of the future. It’s set in a post-apocolyptic world – where The Blast is a thing of history. In this world everybody is born with a…