Seldom has derring do been better derring done. A love story between a bored aristocratic woman and a pirate set in the days of the Restora...

I still can't quite understand why I loved this book so much. In 1417 Poggio, a Florentine, having lost his job as Apostolic Secretary when ...

A tour-de-force of surreal art. It purports to be the second edition of a book originally written by 'Zampano' with an introduction and ex...

Longlisted for the 2026 Booker prize . Phillip Tennent, one of a com munity of beachcombers, rescues something seemingly organic and alive ...

Shortlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize .   An actor, rarely in work, agrees to take part in a university psychology experiment. He had to dre...

Longlisted for the 2026 Booker prize . Phillip Tennent, one of a com munity of beachcombers, rescues something seemingly organic and alive ...

Longlisted for the 2026 Booker prize . Phillip Tennent, one of a com munity of beachcombers, rescues something seemingly organic and alive ...

Autofiction layered. Tasha, ie the author (and we learn that 'Bell' is a pseudonym) decides to write about her life by creating herself as...

Ready to look death right in the eyeballs?

Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize .   An actor, rarely in work, agrees to take part in a university psychology experiment. He had to dres...

This beautiful jewel of a novella describes the corrosive effect of wealth on the inter-relationships within a family. "Ghachar ghochar", ...

Set in the days before motorised transport, before railways, when it still took three weeks to travel from south-west England to Florence, t...

Painted by Nottinghamshire artist Sheila Wood An exploration of the Oedipus complex. Paul Morel, second son of his possessive mother, finds ...

This novel was published in 1915. It is a multi-generational family saga. There are multiple religious themes.  Will Brangwen, when courti...

A stunning production of the play of the novel that spawned the Oscar-winning film.  I saw this at the Grove Theatre in Eastbourne on 22nd A...

This funny, well-observed and sometimes profound novel opens with a stunning hook, when Phoebe, the only guest at the hotel not to be part o...

A novelisation of the story of Timothy Leary and his promotion of LSD. After a 'Prelude' set in Basel in 1943 in which we learn of the dis...

This advertisement for non-toxic masculinity is a gentle book, grounded in normal everyday life, which uses meticulous observation and psych...

Clarkson, an "independent researcher and historian", claims that the figure of Merlin, the wizard in the Arthurian legends, may in part have...

Australians' favourite 21st century book. Why?

If you like 'Downton Abbey' and similar work set in the  world of the English aristocracy between the First and Second World Wars, you might...

Anyone who knows the much-publicised history of the Mitford family will know that this is a fictionalised version of that. (And sanitised;...

The eleventh Lord Peter Wimsey whodunnit principally starring Harriet Vane, whodunnit author and Lord Peter's lover interest. Harriet goes ...

I thought this commission would be straightforward. But my sitter’s response made me question my own attitude to my looks and body image

This classic play is  set in a bar in New York in 1912; the characters are all failures in life, such as a bent policeman drummed out of t...

This  novella about Jesus (never actually called Jesus) after his resurrection was published, after Lawrence had died, as ' The Man Who Died...

A short novel by a French Nobel Laureate. A list of other winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature can be found here . A private investiga...

Laughter, disbelief and outrage over video appearing to show Saltburn player tricking umpire into giving batters out

A novelisation of the story of Timothy Leary and his promotion of LSD. After a 'Prelude' set in Basel in 1943 in which we learn of the dis...

An ensemble comedy of manners, this novel returns us to the characters established in its precursor, Flagey in Autumn , the staff and cust...

The books of French authors I have read and reviewed in this blog (with links to the reviews): Honore de Balzac (1799 - 1850) The grand old ...

A series of nonlinear short stories mingled with a few poems. Apart from the first story,  ‘Cousin Sheila’s Money’, t he stories are told ...

An ensemble novel, much like the Scotland Street series of Alexanderr McCall Smith, such as 44, Scotland Street  (2005) and its sequels suc...

Set in a charity-run boarding-house, the May of Teck Club, in London towards the end and immediately after the second world war, this deligh...