July 2009 Archives

What a book.

Everything is Illuminated was Jonathan Safran Foer's first novel and sickeningly, he was only 25 when he wrote it.

I'll admit it now. I adored every word. It's funny, sweet, tantalising, confusing, clever, devastating...and a little weird...

Some of you may have noticed... I'm a girl.

Therefore, certain folk may consider the books I chose to read and review 'girlie'.

Feminist outrage aside, The Wire creator David Simon could hardly be called a 'girlie' guy (be it a compliment or an insult) although both men and women love his work.

Here Post and ECHO reporter Gary Stewart (not a girl) reviews David Simon and Ed Burns' Baltimore crime epic, The Corner...

It had been on the shelf for a while and thank goodness, my holiday gave me the proper time to devour The White Tiger!

I love a good book set in India (see my views on Shantaram which is, incidentally, supposed to be Madonna's favourite book)

Anyway, The White Tiger. It's a properly decent read; funny, slightly troubling, comically immoral and yet very very believable... 

Just returned from holiday and, of course, I stashed a few books in my luggage!

I grabbed The Piano Teacher at Manchester Airport, concerned the three I'd packed (Outliers, Everything is Illuminated and The White Tiger) wouldn't be enough.

It was lucky I did, I finished the last book the day after we landed home so I judged it exactly right.

Soooo, why choose it? ...

I have a love hate relationship with Ian McEwan although now I struggle to remember where the 'hate' bit came from... I think it's because his books often end badly.

I've just finished Saturday though and I thought it was good. It has been widely criticised because it is Ian McEwan at his most 'wordy'... he manages to stretch the action from one day into a whole book... without so much of a whiff of Jack Bauer.

I was about halfway through when...

I love a good race and the race to release Michael Jackson's biography was always going to echo the madness of the past week.

Apparently, according to this story in The Guardian anyway, the Chinese are leading the way with a book completed in just 48 hours.

Now the various criticisms of the Chinese and their attitude to human rights and terrifying work ethic is not something we need to discuss in a book blog.