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Recent Posts
Category Archives: Biography
Summer by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
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
Posted in 101greatreads, Biography, fiction
Tagged ali smith, hamish hamilton, summer
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In Love with George Eliot by Kathy O’Shaughnessy (Scribe)
“The train had shuddered to a halt. Clatter of doors-opening and shutting, noise echoing in the huge vault of Euston station, a smell of oil-flavoured steam and soot. A last door opens…” THERE might be a warning on this: do … Continue reading
Posted in 101greatreads, Biography
Tagged george eliot, Kathy O'Shaughnessy, love in victorian times, Middlemarch author, Scribe
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The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas by Daniel James (dead ink)
“This book is dangerous” Brash, original, smart… star reporter Daniel James chases down the elusive recluse that is Ezra Maas, cult artist, vanished megastar…this is the kind of book destined, I hope, to find a cult following of its own, … Continue reading
Van Gogh and Britain (Tate)
“I’m gradually beginning to turn into a true cosmopolitan, meaning not a Dutchman, Englishman or Frenchman, but simoply a man” Vincent Van Gogh February 9, 1874. THIS book goes with the brilliant exhibition at the Tate Britain, but sometimes a … Continue reading
Milkman by Anna Burns (Faber)
“The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died.” THE prose is wonderfully joyful and rambling. The Guardian refers to this winner … Continue reading
Posted in 101greatreads, Biography, fiction
Tagged anna burns, Belfast, Man Booker winner
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Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber)
“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
Posted in 101greatreads, Biography, fiction
Tagged carricklea, faber, man booker prize, normal people, romance, sally rooney, trinity college dublin
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Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar (Gallic)
“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
Posted in 101greatreads, Biography, fiction
Tagged adelaide, australia, history, immigrants, settlers
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Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham (Hodder)
“My name is Sebastian Rudd, and though I am a well-known street lawyer, you will not see my name on billboards, on bus benches, or screaming at you from the yellow pages.” THERE is a library near me, beside a … Continue reading
Posted in Biography
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The trip to Echo Springs by Olivia Laing (Canongate)
“Here’s a thing. Iowa City, 1973. Two men in a car, a Ford Falcon convertible that’s seen better days. It’s winter, the kind of cold that hurts bones and lungs, that reddens knuckles, makes noses run. If you could, by … Continue reading