Hot on the tails of the debut shortlist, here’s the main event (I’ve read the first book and the next two have been on my reading list at various times): A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison [...]
Here’s the Orange Award for New Writers shortlist for this year. I’m reading the first one right now: After The Fire, A Still Small Voice by Evie Wyld The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale Irene Sabatini’s The Boy Next Door
Not one of my key competitions for sourcing books, nonetheless this year’s winners, announced a week ago, are of interest. Solo by Indian author Rana Dasgupta won best book, while Siddon Rock by Glenda Guest (Australian!) won best first book.
The Easter break helped me make inroads into a tottering pile. Disappointments were matched by a positive surprise: Much anticipated, Ian McEwan’s Solar has plenty going for it: musical, supple writing; vigorous opening scenes; a virginal field, that of climate change satire, to stalk in; and two very funny comedic scenes. But the storyline lacks [...]
Sarah Hepola at Salon, interviewing wonderful writer Anne Lamott about her new novel Imperfect Birds, asks why the avian title (noting also that Lamott’s classic how-to-write book is titled Bird by Bird). Lamott’s fine response (excluding, for me, the spiritual bits) is inspiring for this beginner birder: I said in “Grace (Eventually)” that if birds [...]
The Pulitzer Prize has been announced (check it out at the source). The winners in the categories I’m interested in are: The Fiction prize has gone to a book from a publisher I’ve never come across, Bellevue Literary Press, a book I’d never heard of (mortification!): Tinkers by Paul Harding. A glance at Amazon puts [...]
Also posted in Nonfiction |
For the list, two books by Australian reviewers whose judgement I respect: Venero Armanno’s review of Martin Westley Takes a Walk by Andrew Humphreys judges it to be well written and with ‘a surprisingly generous heart’. Jason Steger has a tremendously entertaining interview in The Age with Philip Kerr, whose sixth Bernie Gunther (WWII German [...]
Also posted in Crime Fiction |
The review by NYT’s Ben Sisario of Bill Flanagan’s Evening’s Empire is not totally glowing but the novel’s subject matter – 40 years in the life of a rock band named the Ravons – is just what I’m a sucker for. Onto the list it goes.
Also posted in Rock Music |
Max Magee at The Millions, in a post eagerly anticipating three new releases, points me to The Ask, described by one review as ‘brilliant bile,’ by an author new to me, Sam Lipsyte. Literary savagery is just what this reader is looking for.
Last week’s reading: My first Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs, is a refreshing revelation. Moore’s highly individualistic writing style, all quirky similes and metaphors, laced with lyricism, is nothing like what I tend to read. As with other stylistic writers like Cormac McCarthy, I found the going slow because I needed to roll [...]