Author Archives: drewsmith28

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About drewsmith28

Words, words, words...

Lessons for Young Artists by David Gentleman (Penguin)

Posted on December 7, 2025 by drewsmith28

“What is drawing for? Why are we tempted to do it at all?” ONE could ask also ask why it is that one artist becomes better known than another? David Gentleman is less known than many contemporaries, less valued in … Continue reading →

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Dead Point by Peter Temple (Quercus)

Posted on October 10, 2025 by drewsmith28

“On a grey whipped Wednesday in early winter, men in long coats came out and shot Renoir where he stood, noble, unbalanced, a foreleg dangling. In the terminating jolt of the bolt, dreams died.” Have a round on Jack Irish, … Continue reading →

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The Last Children of Tokyo by Yoko Tawada (Portobello Books)

Posted on October 5, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Still in his blue silk pyjamas, Mumei sat with his bottom flat on the tatami. Perhaps it was his head, much too large…” It is post apocalypse, an eco-dystopian futurescape wrapped up in a warm family narrative. Yoshiro minds his … Continue reading →

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The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre)

Posted on September 5, 2025 by drewsmith28

“He was lying on a varnished wooden board, the top of a boxed-in radiator.” The opening is slow, Andrew Miller has just turned on the fire to boil a kettle, like an episode of the Archers, quite a lot of … Continue reading →

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Portrait of an Oyster by Andreas Ammer (Greystone)

Posted on September 1, 2025 by drewsmith28

Andreas Ammer might have benefited from reading my own Oyster a Gastronomic history before embarking on his operatic ode to the world’s oldest and most iconic shellfish. He does, I admit, show a masterly, gynaecological, Germanic interest in the sex … Continue reading →

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Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Penguin/Viking)

Posted on August 29, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Thomas Flett relies upon the ebb tide for a living, but he knows the end is nigh” THE flap quotes the Sunday Times as saying that Benjamin Wood is ‘Britain’s answer to Donna Tart’. Except he writes better and Seascape … Continue reading →

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I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally (Simon & Schuster)

Posted on August 2, 2025 by drewsmith28

“In early August 2018, I tried to commit suicide.” IN a pompous review the Guardian suggested this memoir would have benefited from a bit of editing. That would have been a mistake. The beauty here is the raw courage to … Continue reading →

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Broken Shore by Peter Temple (Quercus)

Posted on June 24, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Cashin walked around the hill, into the wind from the sea. It was cold, late autumn…” THIS small town crime drama is so ingrained in the Australian outback that it is a bit of a surprise to discover that Peter … Continue reading →

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Wild Thing by Sue Pridaux (Faber)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Shortly after his first birthday, Paul Gaugin was bundled aboard a ship called The Albert, to sail some 12,000 miles from the French port of Le Havre to Peru.” The Peru link above is not insignificant. This book was sparked … Continue reading →

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An Island of Suspects by Jean-Luc Bannalec (Minotaur)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Commissaire Georges Dupin had made a new friend.” The first few pages dispel any notion that this investigation will just be another cosy crime. It is literature. It is blue. The sea, the sky, the Bretons even have their own … Continue reading →

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