Best of the Year Golden Hill, Francis Spufford Home Fire, Kamila Shamsie Autumn, Ali Smith Shipping Out, David Foster Wallace Worth the Read The Immortalists, Chloe Benjamin Warlight, Michael Ondaatje Memento Park, Mark Sarvas French Exit, Patrick DeWitt The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry Asymmetry, Lisa Halliday The Innocent Wife (Red River), Amy Lloyd The Witch Elm, Tana French Bitter Orange, Claire Fuller Light Reading The French Girl, Lexie Elliott Laura and Emma, Kate Greathead The Ghost Notebooks, Ben Dolnick Social Creature, Tara Isabella Burton The Banker’s Wife, Cristina Alger A… Read more Carol’s Carrel 2018 →
From Esquire. Already read Laura & Emma, Warlight, French Exit. Okay, Good, Very Good. Dr. Husband read A Long Way From Home. Not so much. He did love Milkman. Man-Booker winner 2018.
Why does everything have to be analyzed through a feminist prism these days? Can’t a good fun read be just that?
by Sarah Perry. Should have realized after reading Perry’s Essex Serpent that this would be another unscary Halloween story. Melmoth, the old witness who sees all of our bad deeds, is a witchy figure dressed in black. She lurks everywhere. The one who denied seeing Jesus rise from the dead. She’s the lore of many countries told to little children by their sadistic parents. Guilt. Shame. Conscience. She follows them through life. Spooky? No. For such a horrible portent, the stories told through letters and documents and by Helen, a… Read more Melmoth →
by Amy Lloyd. That is the original title, for which Lloyd won the first novel prize by Daily Mail/ Penguin Press. She is from Cardiff, Wales. Red River is much more appealing and apt than what it is marketed as in the States, The Innocent Wife. Why it was changed I cannot imagine. It doesn’t describe the work, and it sounds like chick lit. Somehow I got past the title and tried the book. Wanted a quick weekend diversion. Although it is a mystery, there are nuances and layers which are… Read more Red River →
by Patrick deWitt. An amuse bouche. Enough to whet the palate for more of his work. Delightful writing style. Wit. Irony. Colorful cast of characters. From the Upper East Side to Paris. What could be better on a brisk Autumn afternoon? Frances and her husband Franklin are quite the couple. In more ways than one. They are horrible parents to their son Malcolm, ignoring him at best and at worst abandoning him at boarding school, even during the holidays. Until Frank dies. Then Frances jumps to being a little too… Read more French Exit →
by Anna Burns from Northern Ireland. Congrats and another reason not to need a separate prize for women!
by Mark Sarvas. A beautifully crafted storytelling device trumps a lackluster story. Matt Santos tells his story telepathically to an overnight guard at the auction house where a valuable painting he’s unexpectedly inherited awaits sale. Matt Santos is the anglicized name of the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants who discovers he’s the recipient of a newly discovered art treasure. The painting was taken during WWII under the Nazi’s and has been discovered at the National Gallery and traced to Matt’s holocaust survivor family. His father has rejected the work and… Read more Memento Park →
Book - Treks 