I rarely agree with blurb on the front cover of books - but in the case of Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body & Other Parties I can only concur: "brilliantly inventive". This is a raw roller-coaster of a read which takes no prisoners. It shies away from nothing; indeed, Machado deliberately goes deep into her … Continue reading “Her Body & Other Parties”
Category: Reading
“Shakespeare”
Part biography, part critique, part chat - there's an awful lot to like about Judi Dench's depiction of her career in Shakespeare's plays. Laid out as conversations with her friend and fellow actor Brendan O'Hea, Dench takes us through all the Shakespearean roles she's tackled, play-by-play. And we are rewarded with so much: an actor's … Continue reading “Shakespeare”
“The Lantern of Lost Memories”
There are three stories in Sanaka Hiiragi's The Lantern of Lost Memories - and they are essentially the same. Yes, one of the protagonists changes in each story, but what happens to them (and thus the structure of the narrative) is pretty much identical. Once you've read the first story you find there is insufficient … Continue reading “The Lantern of Lost Memories”
“playground”
I got lost at the beginning of playground - so lost, in fact, that I nearly gave up on the book. It didn't matter that it was Richard Powers, I simply couldn't get into the chopping confusion of the first few dozen pages. But I persevered and eventually it all came together and was worth … Continue reading “playground”
Read “The Red Tie” for free!
Read my dystopian thriller, The Red Tie, for free. From today, I am serialising the book in weekly instalments, dropping each Sunday morning. In order to access the novel all you need to do is to head over to my Substack site, subscribe for free (not 'follow'), and each instalment will drop in your inbox … Continue reading Read “The Red Tie” for free!
“The Land in Winter”
The challenge I had with Andrew Miller's The Land in Winter was its pacing. Part One (c. 180 pages) seemed to dawdle along, and then in Part Two (possibly partly because of the short 'chapters') the novel really took off; it became a much more enjoyable read at that point. When I got to the … Continue reading “The Land in Winter”
“Dream of Fair to Middling Women”
I'm not ashamed to admit that some of the time I had little idea of what was really going on in Samuel Beckett's Dream of Fair to Middling Women - nor that I failed to understand far too many of the words used in it... It's an odd blend of Dubliners (1914), Ulysses (1922), Finnegan's … Continue reading “Dream of Fair to Middling Women”
“The Finkler Question”
If I had a problem with Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question it was this: it felt too interested in itself. That's to say, it pursued what seemed to me a single thread over and over again, the characters' primary purpose being to act as theoretical pegs that could be popped into various belief-shaped holes to … Continue reading “The Finkler Question”
“The Many Lives of Heloise Starchild”
It would be unfair - not to say inaccurate - to call John Ironmonger's work 'whimsy'; it is far from that. Perhaps 'fable' might be better. Yet there are times when the latter may stray dangerously close to the former, and there was a short period in the middle of The Many Lives of Heloise … Continue reading “The Many Lives of Heloise Starchild”
“Rare Singles”
Sometimes it's perfectly fine to be able to predict - from very early on - how a story is going to turn out; and maybe it's easier to do that when you're convinced the ending will be a 'happy' one. Benjamin Myers' Rare Singles fits that bill: you can easily guess what's going to happen … Continue reading “Rare Singles”
Ian Gouge - Writer 