Amid a certain amount of consternation, Bernardine Evaristo shared this year’s Booker Prize with Margaret Atwood. It’s the third time in its history that two authors have shared this most prestigious award so the decision must, once again, have been fairly split down the middle. Margaret Atwood is almost venerated in her position as author of The Handmaid’s Tale though she won the Booker Prize in 2000 for The Blind Assassin. But who on earth is Bernardine Evaristo, and how …
Author: Mary Burnham
When I read a review of Adam Mars-Jones’s novel Pilcrow in 2008, I was determined to buy it even though it was a big, expensive hardback. When the sequel, Cedilla, …
Reading an easy book is like turning on the telly, regardless of what’s on, and letting it wash over you. Not that there’s nothing wrong with that when you need …
The tables at the front of our shops hold a dazzling array of brand new books to tempt the avid reader. But don’t forget to occasionally wend your way further …
“When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the …
Just when I have the time to jet off to places unknown, it seems that to do so would send my carbon footprint through the stratosphere. Nothing for it but …
With every book I read there’s always a take-away on some level. It’s like slipping inside another person’s skin to experience highs and lows that in real life would probably …
Paperbacks have been around Europe since the 17th century but initially they were expensive and available only to the few. They became more widely accessible with the invention of the …
There’s a rumour going round that one can have too many books! I hear it occasionally from people who say their house is falling down with books, that they can’t …
‘I don’t know why he can’t get his books from the library,’ says his wife, who doesn’t see the point of buying books at all. What she fails to notice …
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