“A war between two people is not all that different from a war between two countries.” My paternal grandfather, William Smith, was killed in action in World War I. Not long afterwards his wife died of ‘grief’ (malnutrition and exhaustion, in my mother’s view) and their five children were put into homes run by Dr … More Theory of War by Joan Brady
My Dad was a big fan of Westerns. I grew up watching The High Chaparral and A Man Called Horse; by the time I was five I was hooked. I named a teddy bear Blue Boy (after the character Billy Blue Cannon in The High Chaparral) and wrote a letter to Santa promising to be … More Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
One summer holiday, as a ‘project’, I decided to research my family. Not my family tree, you understand, but my family. I was ten, I think; eleven at most. I devised a list of fifteen questions and then interviewed all my immediate family members, parents, brother, sister, cousin, aunts, uncle, granddad. (As children go I … More Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
When I was a child, and resisting sleep because I was scared of ghosts – I grew up in a formerly haunted house, but that’s a whole other story – my mother would tell me, as her mother had told her, that good people are in Heaven with God and don’t want to leave, and … More Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: The Merchant of Venice, Act 4 Scene 1 At the time of writing I’m not long back from Stratford-upon-Avon and a … More The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth
Like most bibliophiles I’m a sucker for a second hand bookshop. The kind where ‘antiquarian’ or ‘vintage’ books rub alongside contemporary offerings, maybe with a smattering of old maps, prints, and postcards thrown in for good measure. The kind with a faint air of fustiness but never of neglect, and where everything is ordered, though … More Doctor Copernicus by John Banville
When I was a child I remember my mum having a blue and white plate. It was in the style of Chinese willow pattern but the stamp on the back said ‘made in Japan’, and depicted a kimono clad figure of indeterminate sex standing on an arched bridge over a softly flowing river, dwarfed by … More An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
Once bitten, twice shy? If you’ve read my earlier review of O’Farrell’s Instructions on a Heat Wave you’ll know it wasn’t for me. Still I’m all for second chances, and having been told by a member of my book group that The Hand That First Held Mine was better – it won the 2010 Costa … More The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell
“A man is a god in ruins” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature Kate Atkinson won the Costa Novel Award 2013 for Life After Life about the lives (yes, lives) of Ursula Todd. In 2015 she won it again with A God in Ruins, about the life of Teddy Todd, Ursula’s younger brother. Having read and enjoyed … More A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson
My RE teacher relished moral dilemmas. She’d take a Commandment, thou shalt not kill, or thou shalt not bear false witness, say, and then question us to explore their outer limits. Would you murder one person to save the lives of many? Would you lie to hide a painful truth? Faith Sunderly, the teenage heroine … More The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge
