Travelling in a Strange Land by David Park

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Travelling in a Strange Land

Moving and tender about parenting

While a snow storm rages, Tom sets off from Belfast by car to collect his sick son at Sunderland University. All flights are cancelled and driving is perilous, but Tom doesn’t have a choice, his son needs help. On his journey through the deserted, snow covered landscape, he reflects on some uncomfortable truths about his family and parenting. Travelling in a Strange Land by David Park, one of Ireland’s most prominent contemporary writers, is a tender, atmospheric read which I highly recommend.

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Be Kind to Your Local Bookseller this Christmas

I’m sure I’m not the only one to have noticed the many closed-down shops around. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen to your local bookstore and buy your Christmas gifts from them rather than Amazon. I know it’s tempting to hit that order button, but can you imagine anything worse than a great big gaping hole where your cozy bookseller once was?

For bookish gift ideas see our Christmas post.

Happy Christmas!

 

Books for Christmas 2018

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Books are for life, not just for Christmas

People who put up Christmas decorations early are happier and more in touch with their inner child than those who don’t, according to a recent report by psychologists. I love this news as I am a bit of a self-confessed Christmas fanatic. Perhaps it’s the Scandinavian in me, but I just can’t get enough of sweet covered gingerbread houses, candlelit windowsills, roaring fireplaces, the smell of incense and mulled wine. So no surprise then that suggesting books as Christmas presents is one of my absolute favourite things to do.

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Margaret Atwood to publish sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale

No doubt inspired by our times, Margaret Atwood has decided to write a sequel to her dystopian best-seller The Handmaid’s Tale. The Testament will be published in September 2019 and will pick up on the story 15 years after the closing scene of The Handmaid’s Tale. I, for one, can’t wait for this book. If you haven’t already read The Handmaid’s Tale, now is the time, or if you have, how about trying another of her masterpieces, Alias Grace.

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Costa Award short-list 2018

Here’s the short-list selection for the Costa Awards 2018. As usual, there are five categories: Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Books. We absolutely loved Sally Rooney’s modern love story Normal People and Pat Barker’s feminist spin on The Iliad in The Silence of the Girls, both nominated in the Novel Award category as well as the strange and wonderful The Colour of the Sun by David Almond in the Children’s Book category. Category winners will be announced on the 7th January and the Costa Book of the Year on the 29th January. Which ones of these have you read?

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Becoming by Michelle Obama

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Becoming

A feel good memoir written with warmth, humour and self-deprecation

The memoir of a First Lady is not usually something I would run to the bookshop for, but in the case of Michelle Obama, I was intrigued. I wanted to know if she really is as kind, warm, intelligent, accomplished, empathic and eloquent as she has come across since the day she set her foot in the White House. And, if this book is to be believed, she is! A feel good book written with warmth, humour and self-deprecation.

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Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

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Convenience Store Woman

Stinging satire on Japanese society

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata is a rare book. Imminently readable, absurd, laugh-out-loud funny, yet profound. And it’s the winner of the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary award. As a child Keiko, our heroine, is different. Unnervingly so. Particularly in a society where conformity is the ideal. ‘Normal’ is what everyone is striving for and when Keiko starts to work in a convenience store, ‘normal’ seems within reach. But being ‘normal’ eventually involves marrying and having children, which she’s not even remotely interested in. As pressure mounts, Keiko needs to find a solution.

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