This was one of the first works of manga I read for book club and it’s a seminal genre text. It helped launch, or at least consolidate, the cyberpunk genre…
The South by Tash Aw (Book review)
This was a quietly beautiful book by the Malaysian writer Tash Aw. I had seen it shortlisted and was curious about the premise, and I’m glad I picked it up….
Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig (Book review)
Stefan Zweig’s reputation often precedes his work, especially when you consider his extraordinary life. Exiled from Austria in the 1930s, going from London, Bath, New York, and Conneticut, to Brazil,…
Early Twentieth-Century Poetry (Penguin Popular Poetry), edited by David Wright
This was a nice, little, slim collection, containing several poems I already loved, including some evergreen favourites by the likes of Yeats (When You Are Old) and Wilfred Owen (Dulce…
A Quiet Place by Seichō Matsumoto: Japanese Agatha Christie? (Book review)
Seichō Matsumoto is marketed as a Japanese “Agatha Christie” and I can understand the comparison from a marketing perspective, though the novel is less like a classic Christie puzzle mystery…
The Touchstone by Edith Wharton (Book review)
Gilded Age 1900 novella from first woman winner of the Pulitzer Prize Edith Wharton: the quintessential New York novelist; few capture the Gilded Age as sharply as she does. It’s…
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton (Play review)
I picked up this script after seeing the National Theatre production starring Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner. Hampton’s adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (an infamous…
Café with No Name by Robert Seethaler (Book review)
Robert Seethaler is an amazing writer, and I’ve read a few of his works in translation. He’s one of those Austrian authors I actually first stumbled upon in Vienna, when…
Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy by Malcolm Gaskill (Book review)
It was fascinating to look behind the legend of the “Witchfinder General,” Matthew Hopkins, alongside John Stearne. Together, the two travelled through towns and villages around Essex and beyond, helping…
Murder in Vienna by E.C.R Lorac (Book review)
This was a book that was very much enhanced by reading it while I was in Vienna! It starts off in a really beautiful way: you’re in a plane leaving…
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (Book review)
My first from this author, but definitely not my last. A masterful translation as well! This dark but interesting and entertaining book is set in Poland near the Czech border,…
The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis (Book review)
Are they girls or are they hell-hounds? This was a beautiful and poignant book about what happens in a small community when suspicions start to swirl around the beautiful and…
Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga (Book review)
I’ve been wanting to read a novel set in Rwanda for awhile and Our Lady of the Nile was a beautiful and deeply affecting place to start. The story is…
No Friend to This House by Natalie Haynes (Book review)
I have hoovered up pretty much everything that Natalie Haynes has written re Greek and classical retellings…and this one was no different! This was a very enjoyable and fast read…
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral by M.R James (Book review)
This short story collection from one of the masters of classic horror writing includes these ghost tales from across his career: All quite similar in tone, they’re classic ghost stories…
Wild Boar by Hannah Lutz (Book review)
Wild Boar is a really interesting short novella, translated from Swedish and published by @theemmapress. I’ve actually been to Ekenäs/Tammisaari where the Finnish-Swedish author comes from: it’s a beautiful place! I…
My Death by Lisa Tuttle (Book review)
This was the perfect slim, elegant, intelligent, sexy, creepy, poetic spring read. I really enjoyed it, and I’ve gone and put a lot of Tuttle’s other work on my tbr….
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart (Book review)
This is a beautiful, visceral love story between two boys (Mungo & James) that’s embedded in the intense world of a Glasgow housing estate in the 1990s. It’s heartbreaking, but…
Which Agatha Christie novels to start with: Top Agatha Christie books
New to the wonderful world of Agatha Christie? Not sure where to start? Read on for some recommendations from across her canon, from creepy Marple novels and classic Poirot mystery…
The Bostonians by Henry James (1886)
Henry James is a genius of social dynamics, which is evident in this classic, yet lesser-appreciated, novel that looks at politics, social class, and the ever-evolving “Woman Question”. First coming…
Meurtre au Champagne (Sparkling Cyanide) by Agatha Christie (Book review)
It was really fun to read this Agatha Christie in French! And the title was also beautifully translated….. This book has one of my fave Agatha Christie tropes: murder in…
We Were There: How Black Culture, Community, and Resistance Shaped Modern Britain by Lanre Bakare (Book review)
A deep social history that goes beyond the archives and trad narratives to rescue the real stories behind multicultural Britain and rewrite dominant discourse on Britishness. The subject matter is…
Something Wicked: The Lives, Crimes, and Deaths of the Pendle Witches (Book review)
This book gives a thorough analysis of the infamous Pendle witch trials; I really appreciated the depth of research that went into it. Carol Ann Lee has clearly worked painstakingly…
The Blue Sky by Galsan Tschinag (Book review)
This is a really interesting and quietly powerful book set among the Tuvan people in Mongolia. It’s a memoir that explores the emotions and rites of passage of a childhood…
Debout les morts by Fred Vargas (Book review)
I have to say, I love Fred Vargas. She’s one of my favourite French crime writers because of how she blends history with crime and mystery so effortlessly. These books…
Lullaby by Leïla Slimani (Book review)
This had been on my tbr for a while: I remember it making quite a splash when it first came out. And part of the reading experience was finally seeing…
Otages by Nina Bouraoui (Book review)
Pictured: reading in Montmartre with an iconic black cat in the vicinity. I picked up this slim French novel a while ago. When I started reading, I realised it was…
Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard (Book review)
This was a lovely, slim read that had been sitting on my bookshelf for a while. Beard is a highly respected classicist, and in this essay, she explores how ancient…
Flesh by David Szalay (Book review)
This book is really well written and I finished it quite quickly, but it also left me feeling a bit empty. There’s a bluntness to the narrative and a lack…
Et la joie de vivre by Gisèle Pelicot (Book review)
Really pleased I read this in French: this is such an important memoir and one that I think will stand the test of time. This book is a great testament…
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Review)
I get the hype with this one: I read this pretty quickly & it’s not a short book! Set during the 1962-3 UK Big Freeze in a village outside Bristol,…
Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh (Book review)
This debut novel by Chukwuebuka Ibeh is a rewarding read; I devoured it and enjoyed discussing it at book club. It’s a layered queer/family story about a boy, Obiefuna, who…
I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There by Róisín Lanigan (Review)
This book is pitched as a millennial horror story about today’s bankrupt rental landscape. And I could definitely relate to much of the shit landlord and substandard housing chat in…
A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller (Review)
As a big fan of The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, I had high hopes for A View from the Bridge, and it didn’t disappoint. The play is short,…
Murder of a Lady: A Scottish Mystery by Anthony Wynne (Review)
I picked up this book because I’d recently visited the Scottish Highlands, and I was in the mood for a classic murder mystery set in that landscape. And indeed, some…
Up the Junction by Nell Dunn (Review)
This was an interesting little Virago book that lifts the lid on 1960s factory girls in London through a series of short stories. Expect trauma delivered staccato style and sleek characters…
1930s Literature: Reading Books from (& about) the Age of Anxiety
There’s something about the 1930s that keeps pulling me back as a reader, in a way that’s almost subconscious. It’s a dynamic decade: suspended between wars, thick with anxiety, experimentation,…
Queer Yearning in Books: Novels & Memoirs about Desire
If you’re looking for queer books that sit with yearning, identity, community, and the messiness of being human: here are some that have really stayed with me. Romance is present…
Festive Reads: Seasonal Reads for Christmas Time
If you’re after festive reads that go beyond pure cheer: books that sit somewhere between warmth and darkness, comfort and unease, here are some seasonal favourites that really worked for…
Scottish Literature: Books by Scottish Authors
If you’re looking to read more Scottish books or books by Scottish authors, here’s a small but mighty pile I’ve really enjoyed recently. There’s a lot of history here, a…
Under the Jaguar Sun by Italo Calvino
This collection of short stories has an interesting history: it was meant to be part of a larger collection of stories, The Five Senses, where each story was connected to…
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
A stunning debut from 2016, this vast multigenerational epic starts in the 18th century in the Asante kingdom, and follows the descendants of one woman. You have one family line…
Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers
This aesthetic Penguin Archives edition was a really lovely read thanks to the beautiful prose of McCullers. This narrative was first published in 1941: it’s a classical tragedy set in…
Felicia’s Journey by William Trevor
A new discovery for me, Trevor won the Whitbread three times and was shortlisted for the Booker prize five times, so I am clearly late to the game! He comes…
Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
I’ve been on a bit of a Muriel Spark binge, and Memento Mori is a great classic one to read! It’s a thriller that examines death and ageing, but in…
Naiset joita ajattelen öisin by Mia Kankimäki, trans. Douglas Robinson
This book was a bit of a publishing sensation when it came out in Finland 2020, and it’s been translated as: The Women I Think about at Night: Traveling the…
Naiset joita ajattelen öisin, kir. Mia Kankimäki
Ajattelin kirjoittaa muutaman ajatuksen tästä kirjasta myös suomeksi! Kuuntelin tämän vasta nyt äänikirjana Otavalta, mutta kirjan maine ja aihe olivat tuttuja jo ennestään. Kirjaa oli helppo seurata, ja se toimi…
Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda
The premise of the book states that this is a story about two people, spending the night together (awake) in an empty apartment before they say goodbye, and both of…
Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh
This book is a bit of a head-fuck, and not necessarily in a bad way. It’s the kind of book that leaves you low-key thinking, what the actual fuck is…
A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup
I read this after finding out about it on the Swinging Christies podcast and it was fun to switch things up with this relatively scientific non-fiction read about potions! Arsenic,…