Julienne Van Loon: Road Story
Road Story by Julienne Van Loon is not a novel I would have ever picked up by free choice. I’d never even heard of it when it was given to…
Gabriel García Márquez: The Story Of A Shipwrecked Sailor
Originally published as a serial in a Colombian newspaper back in 1955, The Story Of A Shipwrecked Sailor, to my surprise given other Márquez titles, is a piece of non-fiction.…
Patrick McGrath: The Grotesque
Patrick McGrath’s debut novel, The Grotesque, tells the story of Sir Hugo Coal, a paleontologist who, after a fall, has become a vegetable. Able only to watch the world around…
Ian Fleming: Live And Let Die
After a lack-lustre introduction to James Bond in Casino Royale, a book with two memorable scenes, one for being an overlong dialogue explaining the ins and outs of baccarat, I…
Erskine Caldwell: Tobacco Road
Written in 1932 and set during the Great Depression of that time, Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road blesses us with a look into the hearts and minds of white sharecroppers in…
Jill Dawson: Watch Me Disappear
Jill Dawson’s Watch Me Disappear takes as its backdrop the Cambridgeshire Fens around the time of the Soham murders, dropping references in all but name. That the narrator, Tina Humber,…
Florian Zeller: The Fascination Of Evil
Florian Zeller, from what I can gather, is the latest darling of the French literary scene. At twenty-six, he is a novelist, a playwright, and a lecturer. And, for one…
Stephen King: Lisey’s Story
In Lisey’s Story King continues with one of his favourite subjects: writers. In a departure from previous novels like Misery, The Dark Half, and Bag Of Bones, the author is…
Nuruddin Farah: From A Crooked Rib
Nuruddin Farah’s first novel, From A Crooked Rib, looks at life in his native Somalia from a feminine perspective. Despite being male, he choose to use this novel to discuss…
Michel Faber: The Apple (New Crimson Petal Stories)
Usually when coming to the end of a book of brick-like proportions, it’s good that the story is over. Not so, however, with Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal And The…