Review by Kirstin

9th Oct 17

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L Konigsburg

Capturing the charms of New York in the 1960's

Claudia Kincaid is 12-years-old, and a bit disgruntled. Bored with the ‘…sameness of each and every week’, she feels it’s time for a grand adventure. Something bold, original, and instructive (she is, after all, a Grade A student). How about running away to New York, to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? With the Met offering celebratory tours to mark 50 years since publication, E.L Konigsburg’s American Classic deserves to be better known on this side of the Atlantic.
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Review by Kirstin

9th Oct 17

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell

8-11 years

Richly imagined Amazonian adventure destined to become a modern classic

En route to the Brazilian city of Manaus, a tiny passenger plane crash-lands in the Amazon jungle. Four children walk away from the smoking wreckage, and into the greatest adventure of their lives. In their bid to reach civilisation, the terrified children need to dig deep, to fight their personal demons, and find courage in a terrain where only the strong survive.

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Review by Julie

6th Oct 17

Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker

An intense psychological drama

Cassandra and Judith Edwards are identical twins. Both brilliant and beautiful; one happily engaged to be married, the other severely depressed. This 1960s psychological drama is an intense read that will bring you into the psyche of both protagonists and show the devastating effects of depression not only on the depressed, but also those around. Brace yourself for something much darker and a great deal more profound than the title suggests.

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News by Julie

Kazuo Ishiguro – Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2017

Great pick this year by the Nobel committee. Author of The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro wins the highest accolade of all, and, unlike last year’s winner Bob Dylan, is excited about it! ‘Flabbergastingly flattering’ was his comment to the press. Of his eight novels, The Remains of the Day, which has become a modern classic, is probably the most enduring. Never Let Me Go, also made a profound impression on me when I read it years ago. I was less keen on his latest novel The Buried Giant, which came out in 2015 and is reviewed here. I would start with Remains of the Day if I were new to Ishiguro. And there are always the filmed versions of that and Never Let Me Go, both worth your while.

The Guardian on Kazuo Ishiguro

Books screaming out to be made into films

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

If you read one book this year, let this be it

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A Scandalous Life by Mary S. Lovell

You couldn't have made it up

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Neverhome by Laird Hunt

An explosion of a novel

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Review by Julie

28th Sep 17

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

A little book to make you happy

I’ve just been through one of the longest good book ‘droughts’ in my reading career. In the end I decided to reach for a classic, sometimes the only way out, and grabbed hold of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. It’s a short book that is more like a portrait of a community than a linear narrative, but within it are sublime little stories, descriptions of people, places and atmosphere that only an old hand like Steinbeck can conjure up.

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News by Julie

Something to look forward to…

Close on the heels of reading a good book, watching a great film is up there amongst my absolute favourite things to do. Looking at this autumn’s upcoming releases of film adaptations, then, fills me with joy! There are some delicious ones coming up, just look at this list!

The Easter Parade by Richard Yates

Enduring American classic

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Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell

Hilarious satire with a darker message

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Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Contemplative and exquisitely written

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Stoner by John Williams

Magnificently written 'word-of-mouth' bestseller

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News by Julie

Man Booker Prize short-list 2017

I’m never a slave to the Man Booker Prize but it’s hard to completely ignore it. Apart from all the hullabaloo it creates, or rather, I should say, is created around it by publishers and booksellers, who all sees this as a major selling opportunity, they do sometimes pick some great books. I say sometimes as I’ve just noticed that I have to go back to 2011, the year Julian Barnes won for The Sense of an Ending, to find a winner I really, really liked.