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 […]
Category Archives: Book Club Fodder
October
06
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
posted by Ms A
This novel is nothing short of a masterpiece. Pouring over it, made me want to read, review and even yearn to write. Alas, few could write like Lauren Groff. It’s winter in the early 1600’s, and a young servant girl escapes the unspeakable conditions of a colonial settlement in the Americas into the wild. This […]
August
03
Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang
posted by Ms A
Yellowface opens with two friends who are both young writers. Charismatic Asian American, Athena Liu has hit the ground running with a multi-book deal, offer from Netflix and doting agent whereas jealous June Hayward has published her first flop. Their friendship is fraught from the start. When Athena suddenly chokes and dies on a pandan […]
July
18
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
posted by Ms A
First, I need to thank my friend Kate who handed me this read on holidays. That small gesture would have lightened her luggage considerably (this is not a slender book) broke my book drought and instantly put my data worries to an end. Who needs to ride reels by the pool when you’ve got Demon […]
December
12
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
posted by Ms A
If you do nothing else this Christmas…. Read and/or gift this little book about an Irish Catholic coal merchant in the days leading up to Christmas in 1985. At only 114 pages, you won’t find a single word or sentiment wasted in this story of the most precious kind. Bill Furlong “had come from […]
October
25
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
posted by Ms A
A mother lets her 8-year-old girl walk three blocks home from school by herself. A neighbour sees, calls the police and she taken away to the School for Good Mothers. If, after 12 months of correctional training, she hasn’t met the state’s standards of what makes a good mother, she will lose her parenting rights […]
September
26
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
posted by Ms A
I feel like I’ve just spent the last 10 days wrapped in a priceless Italian tapestry. A heavy but lavish carpet of Dukes, Duchesses, frescos and treachery. Set in Italy the mid 1500’s, the story is based on Robert Browning’s poem about the short life and marriage of the 16-year-old Duchess of Ferrara. Married […]
September
15
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
posted by Ms A
I don’t know if I’ve just finished a book of fact or fiction but I do know that that’s exactly what Graeme Macrae Burnet intended. It’s London in the 60’s and a quirky young woman makes an appointment with the charismatic yet unqualified psychotherapist of the day, Collins Braithwaite. She wants to see him because […]
May
28
An Odyssey – A Father, Son and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn
posted by Ms A
Did you know that the word “odyssey” derives from Odysseus, the central character of Homer’s epic Greek poem? Or that the word mentor derives from the character “Mentor” who Odysseus chose to watch over his infant son during the many years he was away? Before you worry, no I didn’t read Homer’s Odyssey (or pay […]
December
05
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
posted by Ms A
I have been doing book reviews for a little while now. OK, not as reliably as Ms K and not quite as well researched as the London Review of Books, but I hope I’ve earned enough credibility to call out a stand out book when I read one. And this one is a stand out. […]
