What they say about it Charlie Howard, gentleman thief and famous crime-writer, has gone straight. But holing himself up in a crumbling palazzo in Venice in an attempt to concentrate on his next novel hasn’t got rid of the itch in his fingers. To make matters worse, an Italian beauty has broken into his apartment [...]
Filed under: Book review, Crime | Tagged: Chris Ewan | Leave a Comment »
What they say A music journalist suffers a crisis of faith in Miami. Young London goes hip-hop crazy circa 1988…Old friends make a belated attempt to reconnect disparate lives, and a social recluse finds an unexpected companion in a Victorian cemetery. Threaded with the constant pulse of music, A Book of Blues explores both physical [...]
Filed under: Book review, Music | Tagged: Courttia Newland | Leave a Comment »
What they say Katniss Everdeen is a survivor. She has to be; she’s representing her District, number 12, in the 74th Hunger Games in the Capitol, the heart of Panem, a new land that rose from the ruins of a post-apocalyptic North America. To punish citizens for an early rebellion, the rulers require each district to provide [...]
Filed under: Apocalyptic, Book review, Teen | Tagged: Suzanne Collins | 2 Comments »
What they say ‘Billingham produces an astonishing final twist to complete his most ambitious and accomplished book.’ (Sunday Telegraph) ‘..a twist that I guarantee even veteran crime fiction aficionados won’t see coming.’ (Evening Herald) What I say To me, the twist in the tale is so obvious I was beginning to doubt myself. This is [...]
Filed under: Book review, Crime | Tagged: Mark Billingham | Leave a Comment »
The September meeting of the group discussed David Nicholls’ ubiquitous novel One Day. Those who attended the session had enjoyed this very readable and entertaining novel which focuses on what initially seems a casual relationship formed between Emma and Dexter, two recently graduated students on the crest of a wave, with most of their lives yet [...]
Filed under: Book review, London, New Cross reading group, Romance | Tagged: David Nicholls | 1 Comment »
August’s meeting discussed the novel Room by Emma Donoghue. What they say about it “Part childhood adventure story, part adult thriller, Room is above all the most vivid, radiant and beautiful expression of maternal love I have ever read. Emma Donoghue has stared into the abyss, honoured her sources and returned with the literary equivalent [...]
Filed under: Book review, Children, Crime, Gay/Lesbian, Manor House reading group, Women | Tagged: Emma Donoghue | Leave a Comment »
Blind Eye: Stuart MacBride MacBride does for Krakow and Warsaw tourism what he’s been doing for the granite city of Aberdeen for years in this one. I felt that the story suffered when the setting changed, but it was essential to the plotline and illustrates how gang warfare is going global. As always DI Steel [...]
Filed under: Book review, Crime | Tagged: Steve Mosby, Stuart MacBride | Leave a Comment »
What they say about it After a chance encounter on a train the English teacher William Bradshaw starts a close friendship with the mildly sinister Arthur Norris. Norris is a man of contradictions; lavish but heavily in debt, excessively polite but sexually deviant. First published in 1933 Mr Norris Changes Trains piquantly evokes the atmosphere [...]
Filed under: Book review, History, Politics | Tagged: Christopher Isherwood | Leave a Comment »
The July meeting of the group discussed One Day by David Nicholls. What they say “It’s rare to find a novel which ranges over the recent past with such authority, and even rarer to find one in which the two leading characters are drawn with such solidity, such painful fidelity, to real life that you [...]
Filed under: Book review, Culture, Manor House reading group, Music, Politics, Romance, Women | Tagged: David Nicholls | Leave a Comment »
