Category Archives: fiction

The elegance of the hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (Gallic)

Posted on April 8, 2019 by drewsmith28

“Marx has completely changed the way I view the world,” declared the Pallieres boy this morning, although ordinarily he says nary a word to me.” PERHAPS it is just my personal taste, but it seems as if a new form … Continue reading →

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Milkman by Anna Burns (Faber)

Posted on January 25, 2019 by drewsmith28

“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 →

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How’s the pain? by Pascal Garnier (Gallic)

Posted on November 15, 2018 by drewsmith28

“The sound coming from somewhere in the darkness was barekly audible, but it was enough…   I AM unsure about the title, douleur can be translated as pain, but it also implies grief, soreness, aching, distress and misery as in … Continue reading →

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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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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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