Category: Book Reviews

Or were they in this moment unaware, or something more than unaware – were they somehow invulnerable to, untouched by, vulgarity and ugliness, glancing for a moment into something deeper, something concealed beneath the surface of life, not unreality but a hidden reality: the presence at all times, in all places, of a beautiful world?…

Hannah Hall and Owen Michaels have been married one year. One year of love and bliss, in spite of his sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey, being less than thrilled about her new step-mom. Then one day, Owen disappears and a note is dropped off at their door with three words: ‘keep her safe’. As Owen’s company is accused…

It’s 1913 and Laura Lyons, her husband, and their two children have an unusual living accommodation: an apartment cloistered in the newly opened New York Public Library. In 1993, Laura’s granddaughter Sadie Donovan is also at the New York Public Library, but working rather than living amongst the books. Their histories are connected when a series of thefts occur,…

All they wanted was a quiet week away: away from the noise and bustle of New York, away from the sticky summer heat locked amongst its buildings, away from the endless work emails. But they got far more than they bargained for when the owners of their rental home return because of a blackout in the city,…

Don’t let the floral, whimsical cover fool you. The Jane Austen Society handles grief and loss in the same stride that it revels in the work of Austen and marvels in the friendships that are forged around great literature. From an American film star to a taciturn farmer, the Society is comprised of people from…

‘It scares the health out of me,’ he sang from the Bodines song. He sighed and looked into the yellow distance. ‘I totally love those words,’ he said,’and I wish they were mine.’ It was always the way with Tully: keeping his worries close. I’m constantly captivated by covers and I’m embarrassed to admit they…

“At the end, everyone seemed to be expecting an apology, but I didn’t have one to give them. What could I say? This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.” Our story begins at the end. The end of a 10-year prison sentence, that is. Oliver Marks has served ten years for murder and now that he’s been…

To get straight to the worst, what I’m about to offer isn’t really a short story at all but a sort of prose home movie, and those who have seen the footage have strongly advised me against nurturing any elaborate distribution plans for it. For anyone who, like me, thought that Franny and Zooey was…

It’s strange, to not be the youngest kind of adult anymore.I’m thirty-one now, and my mother is dead. A realistic ode to the profession of working with words, Lily King uses the life of 31-year-old Casey to bring a writer’s struggles to life.  It is 1997 and Casey Peabody is floundering. She’s waiting tables in Harvard Square…

(there are so many covers so I’ve just selected two – I have the one on the right) Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see–because I do not happen to be a “Somebody”–why my diary should not be…