I bought the second Becky Chambers novel first - A Closed and Common Orbit - and that was a mistake, because the first page was so fascinating, yet so obviously needing the back story before I could continue, that I had to find the first novel - The Long Way to A Small Angry Planet … Continue reading Becky Chambers space happiness
Shall I count the ways in which I love this novel? It's a joy to read, easy and deep and delightful. It made me cry. I bought it on holiday and I loved it. It's snort-out-loud funny. It's utterly fascinating if you're not 28 and not from Ireland, like discovering a world of linguistic delights. … Continue reading Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling
This novel annoyed me so much, for its ignorance, or wilful avoidance, of historical accuracy and plausibility. But, if it isn't historical fiction, then it's a deeply uncomfortable read because of its implausibility: we are reading about the systematised prostitution of children in a fantasical story about physical damage in a brutalised society. Some reviewers … Continue reading Xan Brooks, The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times
The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman was published in 1914, and is the story of Ellen Sawbridge who marries her older suitor Isaac Harman when she is 18. He delays the wedding by a few weeks so that the announcement of his knighthood in the Birthday Honours will appear on their wedding day, making her … Continue reading H G Wells is aggravating again: The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman
I was surprised by quite how much I wanted to read Philip Pullman’s next Lyra novels. Reading Northern Lights, The Amber Spyglass and The Subtle Knife when they came out twenty years ago was rather an ordeal for me, as I don’t much enjoy stories about children in danger, struggling to survive. But I devoured them, … Continue reading Philip Pullman, La Belle Sauvage
This 1958 novel crackles with foreboding. It is based on the apparently artless retelling by a teenage girl of a summer spent in France with her elder sister and their younger siblings. It seethes with barely understood sexuality, and, in the absence of any reliable and responsible adults, the dangers that Joss and her sister … Continue reading Rumer Godden, The Greengage Summer
I'd long been aware that the later 19th century in Britain had been a ferment of belief systems reinventing themselves, often within the Christian church. Some time ago I reviewed a marvellous book about utopian communities, Utopia Britannica, that pokes around in the wilder fringes of community living and pseudo-religious invention. Many novels of the … Continue reading The Labour Church
