
Book Reviews - All

Thu 4th Jun 2020
Children’s Books We Love
Children’s Books We Love;
Grow, I Ate Sunshine For Breakfast & more…
A round up of our latest recommendations for young readers…

Wed 3rd Jun 2020
Books We Love
Books We Love;
The Ninth Child, You Will Be Safe Here & more…
A round up of our most recent recommendations for grownups…

Wed 27th May 2020
Books We Love
Books We Love;
Normal People, The See-Through House & more…
A round up of our most recent recommendations for grownups…

Wed 20th May 2020
Children’s Books We Love
Children’s Books We Love;
Animalphabet, Alex Rider & more…
We’re always a bit biased towards children’s books, and a lot of people have been in touch asking for recommendations to entertain children in lockdown. As ever, we’d highly recommend that all grown ups borrow these books from the children to read afterwards!

Thu 12th Mar 2020
Hilda and the Troll by Luke Pearson
Book Review
Trolls, giants, nissen and elves are all commonly found within the colourful pages of Luke Pearson’s popular series. Living in a Scandinavian world in which the monsters and spirits of folklore actually exist, Hilda is a reckless young adventurer whose escapades – with her pet deer/fox Twig – often lead to mysteries she will undertake to help the new friends she meets along the way. A perfect entry point to graphic novels for younger readers, but a joy to read at any age.

Thu 12th Mar 2020
Thornhill by Pam Smy
Book Review
The grey-scale palette, diary entries from the 80s and the overgrown fences of a spooky abandoned orphanage eerily set the stage for Pam Smy’s debut graphic novel. The book is split between two stories: one portrayed via the aforementioned diary entries of a girl within the orphanage, and the other through silent illustrations of a modern day girl moving in next door to the now abandoned building. The way Smy slowly builds the tension between the two stories as they begin to connect ensures you read this book in a single sitting.

Thu 12th Mar 2020
Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Book Review
Part action adventure, part rom-com, part Toronto tour guide, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series is the perfect example for what graphic novels have to offer. Intertwining the internal problems of young adult life with the external problems of over-the-top anime style fights, O’Malley completely understands what it feels like to grow up and the comedic and warming nature of the characters compliment that perfectly. If you’ve never heard of Scott Pilgrim before, then today is the day to change that.

Thu 12th Mar 2020
Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore
Book Review
In an attempt to prove a point that “one bad day” is enough to drive anyone to insanity, Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke showcases the Joker in one of his most iconic and diabolical stories to date. Originally written as a standalone story separate to the official Batman timeline, this book gained such a cult following that its events were quickly adopted as canon to the Batman lore and served as one of the inspirations for the 2019 film Joker. Strong nerves are required whilst reading.

Thu 12th Mar 2020
Hard Pushed by Leah Hazard
Book Review
A slightly gentler, more compassionate look at life within a maternity ward than Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt. However Leah Hazard, who still works as a mid-wife within the NHS, does not pull her punches. Her book is a paean of tribute to the mothers and midwives who strive so hard to deliver healthy babies in an environment which suffers from being undervalued and underfunded, which makes it essential reading.

Thu 12th Mar 2020
The Heavens by Sandra Newman
Book Review
A wonderfully original novel set in an alternate reality. Kate lives one existence in New York with the love of her life Ben, and another dream reality as Emelia in plague riddled London, 400 years earlier. As the distinction between the two becomes less defined Kate has difficulty maintaining her sense of self.

Thu 12th Mar 2020
The Mercies By Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Book Review
Based on the shocking drowning of forty fishermen from a tiny fishing village in Norway in 1617, and exploring the aftermath on the lives of the women and children left to fend for themselves, the book grips from the opening page. Grieving and fearful, some of the women immerse themselves in religion, while others develop the skills necessary to feed themselves and their children.

Wed 11th Mar 2020
Lanny by max porter
Book Review
Recently long-listed for the Booker prize, Lanny is a sublime piece of writing. An unnamed village in rural England is home to the usual village characters, but also to Lanny and his mother and father, Mad Pete, a reclusive artist and Dead Papa Toothwort, a timeless shapeshifter who sees, and has seen, everything.

Wed 11th Mar 2020
Things in Jars by Jess Kidd
Book Review
Jess Kidd’s third novel is set in Victorian London and features Bridie Devine, a female detective searching for a kidnapped child Christabel Berwick. With the added complication that Christabel is not supposed to exist.

Wed 11th Mar 2020
The Offing by Benjamin Myers
Book Review
16 yr old Robert sets out to explore the countryside around his home in the North of England before assuming the role assigned to him by nature of birth and locality. The war has left its’ stain but also infected him with a desire to rebel and explore. Instinctively following an overgrown track to a solitary cottage, he encounters Dulcie, an extraordinary and knowledgeable older woman.

Tue 10th Mar 2020
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
Book Review
A work of non-fiction which reads like fiction and where the reading of the authors’ note and prologue are essential. This arrived with much fanfare and deservedly so. Lisa Taddeo followed the lives of, among others, Maggie, Lina and Sloane for several years before compiling their stories into this description of the desperate ways in which women’s lives can be controlled by the desire for approval and the judgement of others, and I’m not just talking men. A clarion call to those among us who willingly judge without understanding.

Wed 11th Dec 2019
Books of the Year 2019
See below for our choice of Books of the Year 2019.

Thu 6th Dec 2018
Books of the Year 2018
See below for our choice of Books of the Year 2018.

Fri 20th Apr 2018
Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce
Book Review
Set in 1940, when neither swearing nor violence were casual and written in a pastiche of wartime language, Dear Mrs Bird is a breath of fresh air, particularly for readers who have not yet become inured to profanity! Henriette Bird is a particularly stringent agony aunt whose newest recruit, our heroince Emmy Lake, cannot resist the temptation to inject a little compassion into her boss’s brusque replies.

Fri 20th Apr 2018
The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
Book Review
Moss’ description of the sheer terror which, for the fortunate amongst us, only occasionally breaks through the monotonous surface of daily parenting, is breathtaking. I came to this book late – but I now aim to read Sarah Moss’ backlist. Her writing is honest, and tender, and just gorgeous.

Fri 20th Apr 2018
Circe by Madeline Miller
Book Review
Madeline Miller’s first novel, The Song of Achilles, took the literary world by storm when it was published in 2011, and we were lucky enough to host her first event in Scotland. Her second book, Circe, returns to the ancient world, this time with a heroine for modern times. A child born to the house of Helios, she is spurned as neither beautiful nor talented. Love drives Circe to a malicious act of revenge resulting in her banishment to the island of Aiaia. A woman alone, she must defend herself from many who cross her shores, finding love and power as she nurtures skills forbidden to Gods, witchcraft.

Thu 1st Mar 2018
I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
Book Review
A searing memoir of the author’s seventeen brushes with death, from a childhood illness she wasn’t expected to survive, to a terrifying encounter with a stranger on a remote hillside.

Thu 1st Mar 2018
Bantam by Jackie Kay
Book Review
Bantam is Jackie Kay’s first collection since she became Makar. It is an intimate collection celebrating family, from the grand-father who sustained a shrapnel wound in World War 1, through her parents whose fierce political beliefs have not been diminished by ill health or age, to the birth of her beloved son.

Thu 1st Mar 2018
My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent
Book Review
For fans of A Little Life, this is not for the fainthearted, but it is certainly one of my books of the year. Beautiful and brutal in almost equal measure, this is a terrifying examination of a father/daughter relationship. Fourteen year old Turtle Alveston knows how to fire, strip and clean every gun in the house, but is she brave enough to make a friend, and is she willing to do what it takes to escape?

Thu 1st Mar 2018
Lullaby By Leila Slimani
Opening with the brutal murder of two children in her care Lullaby continues as an examination of how a life lived on the margins of society contrives to turn Louise, seemingly the prefect nanny, into the stuff of nightmares. Not a comfortable read but an excellent portrait of the gradual disintegration of a mind.

Thu 1st Mar 2018
Sal by Mick Kitson
Book Review
With liberal use of teen language(!) and a rucksack full of essentials (belVitas, Dundee cake) the eponymous hero of Sal removes her younger sister from the danger lurking in their family home and heads for the woods. Her voice is distinct, her story tragic and you will root for her from the first page. An exceptional debut novel from Mick Kitson.

Thu 1st Mar 2018
Smile by Roddy Doyle
Book Review
Victor Forde is instantly engaging. Alone in a new area of town he finds himself drinking each night at his local bar. Approached by a man who seems to know him, his past starts to unfold in stories told between them. With masterful writing Roddy Doyle elicits easy sympathy for Victor, his irritants become ours and his sorrows too, which leads us to an uncomfortable and stunning denouement.

Thu 1st Mar 2018
Educated by Tara Westover
Book Review
–A searing, ‘hold your breath’ brilliant memoir of how Tara Westover, despite never attending school, decided, aged 16, to educate herself, ending up with a PHD from Cambridge. This, against the background of her extreme ‘End of Days’ Mormon upbringing in Idaho.

Thu 7th Dec 2017
Year of Books 2017
See below for our choice of Books of the Year, there is something for everyone here, from family and friends to Godchildren and Grandparents.

Thu 15th Jun 2017
When Breath Becomes Air
by Paul Kalanithi
Book Review
This is a book to read in one sitting, in fact, I challenge you to look away. One man’s meditation on his life in medicine, set against his terminal diagnosis with inoperable cancer part way through the writing. Powerful, poignant stuff, not least his wife’s afterword.

Thu 13th Apr 2017
The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes
Book Review
A slim volume that packs a punch, examining the life of Shostakovich, in the elegant form of a Julian Barnes novel. Life, art, the nature of courage are set against the background of Soviet Russia. There are moments of great wit, and electric jolts of fear as he navigates the perilous and often arbitrary nature of surviving the system.

Fri 7th Apr 2017
The Lauras by Sara Taylor
Book Review
“I didn’t realize my mother was a person until I was thirteen years old and she pulled me out of bed, put me in the back of the car, and we left home and my dad with no explanation.”

Tue 4th Apr 2017
My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal
Book Review
Nine year old Leon adores his new baby brother, Jake. He loves looking after him and everything should be wonderful. But Leon’s mum is not coping well and as more and more responsibility falls on Leon’s young shoulders, things get out of hand.

Fri 14th Oct 2016
Days without End
by Sebastian Barry
Book Review
A huge in-house favourite and deserved winner of the overall Costa Book of the Year, Days Without End is a novel of love and war set in the American West. A novel that will make you wince with pain and gasp in awe in almost equal measure.

Tue 2nd Aug 2016
The Girls by Emma Cline
Book Review
An edgy and disturbing book. Cline steps indie the skin of her teenage protagonist with an ease that makes for uncomfortable yet compulsive reading.

Sat 14th Nov 2015
Nopi by Ottolenghi
Book Review
The new book in Ottolenghi’s oeuvre is a thing of beauty in itself, complete with glorious gold edges. Don’t be put off by its restaurant heritage, all the recipes have been rigorously tested, with head chef Scully teaching himself to become a home cook in the process.

Fri 9th Oct 2015
The Last Tour of Archie Forbes
by Victoria Hendry
Book Review
Step out of your reading comfort zone and pick up The Last Tour of Archie Forbes. It is a gem of a novel that will have you amused, horrified and scared – for all the right reasons. It may even make you a more sympathetic human being. I carried it with me, hoping for a spare moment to read but not wanting it to end too soon. This is Victoria’s Hendry’s second novel, I may just have to buy the first.

Sat 1st Aug 2015
A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara
Book Review
Set in mostly New York, this is ostensibly the story of friendship between four men from their days immediately post-college, through to their 50’s. But is so much more than that. The author, through her characters, redefines what family and friendship can be. Utterly compelling from page 1, I was absorbed to the exclusion of everything else while on holiday, and this is not a light book to carry to the beach… It packs serious emotional punch, full of pain and beauty, but astonishingly also flashes of brilliant humour.

Wed 13th Aug 2014
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Book Review
I read Go Set a Watchman on publication last year and, despite the controversy, thoroughly enjoyed hearing Scout’s voice again. On seeing that my daughter had finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird on holiday, I was delighted to scoop it up in her wake and immerse myself in the deep South once more.

Wed 6th Aug 2014
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
There are some books which, when you’re finished reading them, seem to pop into your mind for weeks (or years) afterwards. Set in three periods, just before, just after and twenty years on from a deadly flue that wiped out 99% of the world’s population. It is a remarkable book about memory, love, loss, faith and hope with that rarest of things – a satisfying ending. Our bookshelves are not short of post apocalyptic fiction, but this is something so much more – think Margaret Atwood, not Suzanne Collins.

A Skinful of Shadows
Book Review
Hardinge’s previous novel, The Lie Tree (winner of the Costa Book Prize) was read by adults and teens alike. The same should apply to this excellent, atmospheric and utterly gripping story. Living a perilous existence at the beginning of the English Civil War, Makepeace is a strong young woman forced to live with dark secrets from an early age. A perfect wintery read.