Books I Want To Read Before The Summer’s Over

It’s nearly the end of August but Summer’s not over yet, despite what the Halloween candy in the grocery store has been screaming at me. (If I, an autumn-obsessed witch, say it’s too early… it’s way too early.) I was reading a stack of New York Times Book Reviews from the past few weeks, and

Audiobook review: There’s A Word For That by Sloane Tanen

Star Ratings: Story: 4/5 Writing: 3/5 Characters: 5/5 Audio recording: 4/5 Overall: 4 out of 5 stars I listened to There’s A Word For That via Libro.fm, which I recommend enthusiastically. A percentage of all purchases helps out indie bookshops! Please go check them out. This was very much an impulse download; I needed something

Staff Pick: The Changeling by Victore Lavalle

My most recent staff pick at the bookshop: Victor Lavalle mixes family drama, horror, folklore, and vivid realism in this absolutely gripping novel about parenthood and American culture. Appollo Kagwa is a “book man” and a father, devoted to his wife Emma and their newborn baby. But Emma’s postpartum depression soon turns into something far

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

How does everything Helen Oyeyemi touches turn to gold? Her writing follows some fairy tale logic that meanders off the road, yet never leads you astray. I was smitten with Boy, Snow, Bird and White Is For Witching. I was beyond enchanted by the stories in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours. And I

Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney’s novels have away of finding me right when I need them most, and they always hurt my feelings.  There’s not much I can say about Normal People that other reviewers haven’t already said, so I’ll be brief. I liked Conversations With Friends quite a lot when I read it this time last year,

Top 10 Reads of 2018

Ahoy there, long forgotten and much-missed corner of the internet.  I’m just dropping in to forcefully recommend my ten favorite books that came out in 2018, then I’ll probably forget to post for another year or so. Sad but true!  Let us not delude ourselves with thoughts of extra-curricular productivity in this shiny new year.

Wildfire At Midnight by Mary Stewart

Star Ratings: Characters: *** (3 stars) Writing:***** (5 stars) Plot: *** (3 stars) Overall: **** (4 stars) Oh, hello, it’s been nearly a year since I re-visited this dusty old page. I’ve moved house and made some Frighteningly Big Life Decisions in the meantime, so please forgive the lapse. Big changes in life bring with

Book Review: The Secret Place by Tana French

Star Ratings: Characters: ***** (5 stars) Writing:**** (4 stars) Plot: ***** (5 stars) Overall: ***** (5 stars) Tana French said in an interview: “You can be a perfectly healthy person without having kids or having a romantic relationship – you can live a full, happy, healthy life. I’m not sure you can do that without

Unhappy Women Being Mysterious In Paris part II: Unbecoming

Earlier this month I noticed that my reading habits had taken on a brief trend: books about secretive young woman hiding from their problems in Paris.  Patrick Modiano’s In The Café Of Lost Youth introduced me to the inscrutable, magnetic, restless Louki.  The book’s three other narrators found themselves consumed with interest in Louki’s past, her

Unhappy Women Being Mysterious In Paris Part I : In The Café Of Lost Youth

In The Café Of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano Star Rating: Characters: **** (4 stars) Plot: *** (3 stars) Writing: ***** (5 stars) Overall: **** (4 stars) When one of my favorite regulars at the Bookshop recently asked me what I’d been reading, the only thing I could think to say was, “Mostly novels about