Author Archives: drewsmith28

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About drewsmith28

Words, words, words...

The gallows pole by Benjamin Myers (Bluemoose)

Posted on October 5, 2018 by drewsmith28

“Soot and ash. Snot and spume. Quag and sump and clotted moss. Loam.” THE opening playful poetry should not distract you… we are off to a flying start, it is 1767, we are on a secret errand, we pass the … Continue reading →

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Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber)

Posted on September 26, 2018 by drewsmith28

“Marianne amswers the door when Connell rings the bell.” BY coincidence I heard a radio broadcast where a well known doctor admitted to flunking out of Oxford because of an unhappy love affair and where the plot details do not … Continue reading →

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The shepherd’s hut by Tim Winton (Picador)

Posted on September 19, 2018 by drewsmith28

“When I hit the bitumen and get that smooth grey rumble going under me everything’s hell different” THERE is a sticker on my edition proclaiming that this has been a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, which is a bit … Continue reading →

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Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (Jonathan Cape)

Posted on August 29, 2018 by drewsmith28

  “In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals.”   I RECOMMEND that you do not read too many reviews of this brilliant contender for the Man Booker … Continue reading →

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The president’s hat by Antoine Laurain (Gallic)

Posted on August 5, 2018 by drewsmith28

“Daniel Mercier went up the stairs at Gare Saint-Lazare as the crowd surged down.”   THE hat in question – and in the original French edition – belongs to president Francois Mitterand. It is probably just coincidence that two of … Continue reading →

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The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain (Gallic)

Posted on August 2, 2018 by drewsmith28

“The taxi had dropped her on the corner of the boulevard.” This is very filmable – a French comedy of manners, of mores, of missing identities. A screen version might skip the rich literary (French) references but the compensation of … Continue reading →

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The Hungry Empire by Lizzie Collingham (Bodley Head)

Posted on July 17, 2018 by drewsmith28

“Saturday 18 July 1545 was a fish day on the Mary Rose” I SUSPECT if you went back in time the most difficult thing you would encounter might be the food, an argument given more than a little weight by … Continue reading →

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A long and messy business by Rowley Leigh (Unbound)

Posted on June 28, 2018 by drewsmith28

“I have been doing this sort of thing for quite a while now.” I am not sure anyone should write a cookery book until they reach a certain age. It is quite possible to open a food business with a … Continue reading →

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Lincoln in the bardo by George Sanders (Bloomsbury)

Posted on June 18, 2018 by drewsmith28

“On our wedding day I was forty-six, she was eighteen.” The Bardo of the title is a Buddhist idea of a transitional state between life and death, a purgatory. I mention it because no one else bothers. There is a … Continue reading →

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Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar (Gallic)

Posted on June 6, 2018 by drewsmith28

“Mama often talked of this house when I was a child, and of its squirrels with particular fondness.” WE are in the grand manner of the novel as literary artifice, a swell of sentences, characters in the rough, an anchored … Continue reading →

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