Author Archives: drewsmith28

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About drewsmith28

Words, words, words...

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (Sphere) part one

Posted on October 18, 2020 by drewsmith28

review of the latest Strike novel
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Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (Vintage)

Posted on September 18, 2020 by drewsmith28

“I sometimes wonder what was disappeared first – among all the things that have vanished from the island.” THE original Japanese version was titled Secret Crystalisation which also marries with the snow falling across the island and perhaps the fate … Continue reading →

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Summer by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)

Posted on August 17, 2020 by drewsmith28

SO, we have the younger genius brother from hell, the father’s mistress who is struck dumb. This is the fourth in the quartet (I presume) and like the other volumes the opening salvo takes no prisoners. “As in, so what?” … Continue reading →

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The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos (Pushkin)

Posted on July 24, 2020 by drewsmith28

“In 1971, the American writer Richard Brautigan published a quirky love story about a male librarian and a young woman with a spectacular body.” A PROPER mystery of the kind that perhaps might not have even been translated into English … Continue reading →

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The Panda Theory by Pascal Garnier (Gallic)

Posted on July 14, 2020 by drewsmith28

“He was sitting alone at the end of a bench on a deserted railway station.” I REALLY like the way Passcal Garnier writes. Setting aside the surrealist crimo plotlines, his characters breathe. They are in the moment. We are with … Continue reading →

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Love Many by Niamh Campbell (winner of Sunday Times audio award)

Posted on July 6, 2020 by drewsmith28

IT is scandalous to suggest that this blog is in some way in the pay of the James Joyce Jolly bursary to promote writers of Irish descent. It is true that I took a drink (an obscure poteen derivation) from … Continue reading →

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Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor (Secker & Warburg)

Posted on May 26, 2020 by drewsmith28

“All night long he would walk the ship, from bow to stern, from dusk until quarterlight, that stick-like limping man from Connemara with the drooping shoulders and ash-coloured clothes”. I HAD to re-read Joseph O’Connor’s towering fiction on the Irish … Continue reading →

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A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry (Faber)

Posted on April 20, 2020 by drewsmith28

“I am Winona. In early times I was Ojinjintka, which means rose.” SO we are back with those McNulty’s again are we, Sebastian? Another tome in the family history? More about naughty uncle Thomas in Tennessee? Barry’s prose can read … Continue reading →

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Posted on March 25, 2020 by drewsmith28

Ireland’s Green Larder by Margaret Hickey (Unbound) “The island of Ireland is so small you can drive across it in a few hours…yet it became the cradle of literature, music and dance, of politicians and soldiers, of philosophers and saints, … Continue reading →

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AN ISOLATIONIST'S READING LIST

Posted on March 23, 2020 by drewsmith28

FOR the best in modern writing compiled over much of the past decade just tick the 101 button to the right, a compendium of independent recommendations from my book shelf, fairly scrupulously curated, in no order because each rewards the … Continue reading →

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