Booka in Oswestry has to be up there as one of my top five bookshops. Everything it does it has done well, from the selection of fiction books, to the children’s area and the coffee. It’s very spacious and welcoming with a relaxed atmosphere: the books are set amongst the coffee tables, everyone immersed in […]
The Abundance by Amit Majmudar, first published in 2013, is a lovingly bittersweet story of first generation immigrant parents living in the American mid-west, and their strong ties to Indian culture that their children and grandchildren are trying to leave behind. Very early in the book you hear of the mother’s terminal illness and
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Twenty years in preparation Hall brings us a story of Helm, the only named wind in the UK. Naturally, this prompts the question, ‘Know any other winds?’. I had thought about Scirocco, the Mediterranean southerly that is also synonymous with Volkswagen’s squashed Beetle. But of course, there are others less tied to consumerism. Many of
In publishing it has been a year for highlighting the importance of rivers and water, from Robert Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive? to the release of the paperback edition of Elif Shafak’s There Are Rivers in the Sky. Joining these works in a triumvirate is Saraswati, the debut novel from award-winning short story writer, Gurnaik
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It’s great to find this aperitif sized delicacy in the library. A short story of approximately 50 pages So Late in the Day was first published in the New Yorker in 2022. The brevity means you can readily read this vignette in an afternoon. So Late in the Day follows an afternoon and evening with
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‘The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite’ Piranesi is the second novel from Susanna Clarke following Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004). Published in 2020, Piranesi is a swirling puzzle of a book. Written in diary form, the story is set in the mysterious House: there is only Piranesi and ‘The Other’
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We are well and truly into the 2025 Booker Prize season. What better way to recognise the literary quality that this prize highlights than to mention Small Things like These by the masterful short story writer, Claire Keegan. Published in 2021, Small Things like These won the 2022 Orwell Prize, as well as being shortlisted
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Walking up the hill through Ambleside, you’ll see the sign you’ve been looking for, Fred’s Bookshop, at the top of the high street. Fred’s covers the whole range; from BookTok influenced trends to the ambitious and erudite looking Fitzcarraldo Editions, I think you’re very likely to find something you like and perhaps even something
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It is perhaps worth mentioning that I started writing this review on the 4th of July, American Independence Day; a day when Americans threw off British control. To some, this was a liberation. But for many, independence was theoretical, and merely marked the start of a long battle for equality and justice: through the Civil
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My Name Is Lucy Barton is Elizabeth Strout’s fifth novel, and the first of the Lucy Barton collection. Published in 2016, it topped the New York Times bestseller list and made the longlist for the Man Booker Prize. It is a story reflecting on childhood trauma and how this shapes the person you become, and
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