Read: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray ★★★★★ 📚
A great read, multiple pov, full of surprises. Inside each character’s head indecision jerks chains. The stories shift between characters, each enough for a novel of its own. At first I felt some were left hanging, but it all weaves together.
Tag: ★★★★★
Read : Prophet Song by Paul Lynch ★★★★★ 📚
The epigram –
“In the dark times will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times. Bertolt Brecht”
In the head of Eilish, mother of four, as she walks into hell, a small step at a time. Had me completely absorbed.
Read Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver ★★★★★ 📚
David Copperfield about the opioid problem in Appalachia. I was sucked in by Demon’s voice. Glad I knew a happy ending for at least some characters was expected. I”ll wait a bit but rereading Dickens is on my list for 2024.
Read: Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein ★★★★★ 📚
Great read, drops you into 1940s Trinidad plantation barracks. Cramp, leaky & claustrophobic. History & the recent past twists Hans, Shweta & Krishna, good people, into knots. Entangling characters, setting & my attention.
Read: You Have a Friend in 10A: Stories by Maggie Shipstead ★★★★★ 📚
Loved these absorbing stories. Wide ranging settings & situations. Plenty of surprises. The only disappointment, an expected last story turned into acknowledgments & extract from The Great Circle.
Read: The Apparition Phase by Will Maclean ★★★★★ 📚
Flawless seventies recreation. Suburban, gothic, ghosts, teenage energy all with a depth of detail. No modern language, attitudes or slip up. Exciting too.
Read: The Secret History by Donna Tartt ★★★★★ 📚
A re-read. Still brilliant. A cast of over privileged young poseurs’ arrogance leads to murder and their panic to another. The consequences play out. All followed by the less wealthy narrator, who is dragged in and down by his fascination.
Read: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka ★★★★★ 📚
Great read. I know almost nothing about Sri Lanka. Surprisingly touching given the setting, the after life, a world of ghosts & demons many the result of political killings.
Read seven steeples by Sara Baume ★★★★★ 📚
October mornings peeled the night cloud back to its subcutaneous lilac tissue.
The leaves earned their name by leaving the trees.
A couple drop out and slowly dissolve into nature. Dreamy poetic prose.
Read: Rose Nicolson by Andrew Greig ★★★★★ 📚
Scottish History the 1570s, a period I am ignorant of. Glad to get an entertaining education & hints of what to search Wikipedia for. Fair bit of Scots, a tale of a furniture dealer, poet, scholar & courtier. Exciting as Stevenson.