The Temple House Vanishing is a dark and, I hope, atmospheric tale of desire set in a convent school in the early 1990s. The story emerged from a kind of misty, fatalistic mood. I knew it was autumn and I could very clearly see a teenage girl getting out of a car in front of a large old house. Her arrival being watched and noted by other students. I had no idea why she was there or what would happen …
Category: Fiction
Greetings! The German playwright Bertolt Brecht once wrote that he carried a brick on his shoulder in order that the world would know what his house was like. If I …
Even though I spend so much of my time using many words in endless sentences to pitch my favourite books to people, it’s quite easy to catch my interest when …
It’s a wonderful gift to be able to put the past behind us and get on with our daily concerns. One minute we fear for our lives, the next we’re …
My little brother and his pals would play Cowboys and Indians for hours at a time. They’d point an imaginary gun at the unfortunate lad who drew the short straw …
My childhood home was littered with books on every available surface. They were stacked in wobbly piles on the floor, and two deep on the few makeshift shelves that threatened …
I read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee last year (see previous post), and when I finished it, I knew it was very good. But I didn’t realise how good. It …
There was a time when I would read a book cover to cover whether I was enjoying it or not. It was as if I was obeying an unwritten rule …
In our final post for 2019, Mary Burnham rounds up her favourites of the year. See you in 2020! It’s that time of year when so many people give books …
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 …
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