Category: Books
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The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine
I bought this book off the back of an entertaining interview with the author in The Observer a couple of weeks ago, and I’m incredibly glad I did. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist is a memoir of sorts, with Tomine literally sketching vignettes of his life as he persevered to become a renowned cartoonist.…
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Just Like the Other Girls by Claire Douglas
This is a twisty little tale where you’re never quite sure where the story is heading. Una has just got a job as a live-in companion to the wealthy, but cold Elspeth. But the money is good, and she’s willing to put up with the fact that Elspeth’s daughter Kathryn really doesn’t take to her.…
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The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Richard Osman’s first novel is as delightful as it is unexpected. Writing a crime novel didn’t seem like the obvious next thing for Richard Osman to do, and I always get a little nervous when celebrities turn their hands to something outside their previous career. Are they just being published because they’re famous? Well that’s…
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The Chalet by Catherine Cooper
The Chalet is a debut thriller, and it’s a great ride. Told from several vantage points, and from two timelines, we are taken to an Alpine ski resort. In the present day, a wealthy group has gathered in a luxury chalet, and of course there are secrets. Ria has come with her husband Hugo, who…
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Fair Warning by Michael Connelly
Of course I’m going to read a new Michael Connelly book, and it’s interesting that he’s one of the relatively few authors still being published during lockdown, with so many spring books being pushed to the autumn. While I’ve read everything Connelly has published in recent years, this is actually the first book featuring his…
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Just Like You by Nick Hornby
This is the first Nick Hornby novel I’ve read in a while, although I’ve certainly read most of his more famous work. I couldn’t quite put a handle on why I’d stopped reading him, but I definitely enjoyed this new work. Lucy is a white school teacher in her forties who’s getting over a breakdown…
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Reading in a Time of Covid
Since the world went to the dogs earlier in the year, and many of us have been stuck largely in our homes, our lives have basically been turned upside down. For me, work continued. I can work remotely. I have my work laptop, and a vaguely agreeable space in which to set it up. So…
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Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
I knew that I wanted to read this book almost as soon as I heard about it. There were at least three podcasts featuring Wiener in my queue, and at least a couple of newspaper features I’d come across. But I’ve yet to listen to or read any of them, because I knew that I…
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Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Good Omens is one of those books that has somehow slipped past me for thirty years… until now. The book was published in 1990, and at that point I’d read both comics written by Neil Gaiman, and at least the first Discworld book. So I knew who the writers were, and I shoe have been…
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Silver by Chris Hammer
Having just read and loved Scrublands, I was delighted to discover a sequel has just been published. Once again, we follow Martin Scarsden, just a few weeks after the events of Scrublands. He’s just been away in the city writing a true-crime book that summarises the events of that earlier title. Now he’s somehow ended…
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Ayoade On Top by Richard Ayoade
The premise of this book is so ridiculous that I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, had I not heard a really good review of it. I got the audio book of this, and it was laugh out loud funny – I had to be careful where I listened to it! View From The…
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Transcription by Kate Atkinson
Another title that has been kicking around in my home for a while, but which has all the ingredients for me to really enjoy. Spies at wartime; a post-war BBC radio setting; multiple timelines. Juliet has been plucked from an administrative government job to help run a monitoring operation out of a London flat. The…