Reviewed by Shirley Whiteside Dennis-Benn roots the story firmly in Jamaica by using local patois in speech which has a musicality and poetry all of its own. Through Thandi she shows the discrimination against girls with dark skins and the lengths some will go to in order to have the light brown skin that is considered beautiful. It is another desperately sad example of healthy young women being told they are not enough in themselves [Read more...] Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner Born to farm, Gertie’s greatest ambition is to set up herself, her husband Clovis and their five children on their own piece of land, in a sound house, within their own community. And this dream of life, made concrete in the form of The Tipton Place, is almost within her grasp when pressure from Clovis, Gertie’s own mother and convention force her to abandon it. It’s wartime, Clovis has been called up but is now working in a factory in Detroit, earning decent money, and the pressure is for his wife to pick up sticks and join him in the accommodation he has found [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by Zoë Fairbairns Living as a fugitive in suburban London gave Zola much to contend with: fear, homesickness, anger and loneliness, as well as the contradictions of celebrity – he needed to be incognito, yet he yearned to be recognized. Then there was the terrible cooking: ‘Their vegetables are always cooked without salt, and they wash their meat after they’ve cooked it.’ The distasteful personal habits of some Crystal Palace women were another irritant – apparently they dropped hair pins in the street [Read more...] in Reviews Reviewed by N.J. Cooper After darkness comes light. Reading one of Elly Griffiths’s Ruth Galloway novels is like pulling the softest duvet around you. She doesn’t shrink from the realities of the modern world in any way, and her characters’ crimes are as convincing as anyone’s, but there is so much warmth and so much good sense and humanity in the way Ruth manages her life and her cases that the atmosphere Griffiths creates is remarkably optimistic [Read more...] in Reviews
Published by Bloomsbury UK/Random House US George Saunders’ new novel – ‘a luminous feat of generosity and humanism,’ according to Colson Whitehead – tells the story of a grieving president as he spends the night in the cemetery where his beloved son lies in rest. Now The New York Times has released a companion film to the book, a co-production with Plympton, Sensorium and Graham Sack, directed and written by Graham Sack. George Saunders collaborated on the adaptation. For Saunders – and Lincoln – fans, the film visualizes Lincoln’s haunting experience – and gives voice to the ghosts that populate Saunders’ evocative tale. /2017/02/09/books/review/lincoln-in-the-bardo-george-saunders.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0 and in the NYT VR app, which is free and available to download on the Play Store and App Store. Hyper-vigilant like all children of abusive parents, Ali Land’s Milly has an excellent insight in other people’s secrets and behaviours. She knows when she is being manipulated and she is herself a brilliant manipulator of other people.
Her voice is beautifully rendered and her own behaviour is absolutely convincing. This is a most impressive novel... *A 2016 Notable Book As the shadow of the coming crisis intensifies, so other problems develop for Neni and Jende. The birth of their second child Timba compounds their financial difficulties while their individual and joint relationships with the Clarks become ever more tangled. Yet Mbue – a Cameroonian herself –notably inclines away from the predictable [Read more...] in Revewsbookoxygen is a place to celebrate writing and writers, in particular novels and novelists. It’s a site where interesting new writing is aired and appreciated, chiefly through the reviews of industry professionals – writers, publishers, journalists. bookoxygen was dreamed up in February 2012 and launched in April of the same year. It is the brain child of Elsbeth Lindner whose experience in the book business over some forty years has not dimmed her delight in discovering a good book.
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At The Interview Online you will be able to listen to high standard audio and podcast interviews with authors, playwrights, directors and other artists in Britain. of interviews are conducted by Nicola Barranger who developed The Interview Online when she realised that more and more people are demanding ever increasingly diverse audio at the click of a mouse. Nicky has worked as a producer and presenter, mainly with BBC World Service and more recently with Literary Winchester - a new website exploring Winchester and the surrounding areas connections with writers and their work. Surrey Libraries book related events programme can be downloaded here. BBC Radio 4 Bookclub - Led by James Naughtie, a group of readers talk to acclaimed authors about their best known novels. Bookgroup online is a website where you can discuss books you have read. BookCrossing is the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.