Hold the HRT for this wild and wonderful window into the menopausal mind. In All Fours, a 45-year-old artist, wife and mother is planning a solo road trip from LA to NY for work. With a determination to prove to herself that she’s a steady and reliable person (and not the loose cannon she is […]
Author Archives: Ms A
October
18
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
posted by Ms A
I think Sally Rooney must have good sex. What other explanation could there be for the way she weaves sex into so much of her writing? Normal People, Conversations with Friends, and Beautiful World, Where Are You all feature an above-average amount of top-shelf intimacy. Funnily enough, all bestsellers. Before you power up your gadget […]
September
25
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
posted by Ms A
Books about car dealers don’t often feature in the Booker Prize. In fact, I think this might be a first. Australian author, Peter Carey (himself the son of a car dealer) wrote two cracking books featuring car dealers but neither of them made it to the literary podium like The Bee Sting. In this case, […]
July
06
James by Percival Everett
posted by Ms A
This is Huckleberry Finn, but not as you know it. James is a sensational re-imagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of runaway slave, Jim. Apart from being a work-stopping, page-turner, it welcomes a whole new generation of readers to one of the most revered American novels of all time. I don’t […]
June
10
The Wager by David Grann
posted by Ms A
Steady yourself for this true story of ships, storms, starvation and survival. Written by American journalist and author David Grann (who also wrote Killers of the Flower Moon), and with a biggest bibliography I ever did see, The Wager is a stunning re-telling of a doomed British naval voyage that took place in 1741. The […]
April
25
Until August by Gabriel Garcia Márquez
posted by Ms A
Gabriel Garcia Márquez, the Colombian, Nobel Prize winning author of Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude, died in Mexico City in 2014. He had started work on Until August many years before but, with the onset of dementia, decided it wasn’t worthy of publishing and asked that it be […]
April
18
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
posted by Ms A
Kids, this is a complex one. A quote on the front cover promises “Elegant, dizzying, playful” but I think “Dark and difficult” would have been more apt. With themes of suicide, addiction, racial tension and grief, it is not exactly a breezy, crowd-pleaser, but please read on if you dare. Martyr! tells the story of […]
April
02
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
posted by Ms A
I think I injured my knee reading this book. That’s what happens when you find yourself immersed in a heavy book in the same awkward position for two hours at a stretch, especially when you are over 50. The irony of my reading injury is that the book was recommended to me by a doctor. […]
March
12
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
posted by Ms A
In his 2023 Booker Prize winning book, Paul Lynch imagines the Republic of Ireland slipping into totalitarianism. Things kick off with a sinister knock on the door and it’s a slow but steady descent from there. The door belongs to Eilish; a scientist, wife, mother of four and primary carer of her elderly father, who […]
February
20
Calypso by David Sedaris
posted by Ms A
How I wish I was related to David Sedaris. In my imagination, he would inch up to me at family dinners just to hear my latest story and pick me for conspiratorial bitch sessions under the table. In this book (written in 2018) David Sedaris walks the oh so precious path between laugh out loud […]
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