It's 1952, in the hottest summer that Paris has had since before the war. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2012 Beatrice writes to her brother, Marvin, saying "Paris was terrible", and she has little else to report. She has travelled there, at Marvin's request, to look for Marvin's
In "Health and Guidance" class, the teacher goes up and down the rows, asking what the students had for breakfast. On the surface of it, she is checking to see if they are keeping to Canada's Food Rules, making solid nutritional choices. In fact, this is one more way in
Catherine Asaro's works are often recommended when this question is raised amongst readers. (Amidst all the debate and kurfufflery, ruffled readers' feathers and bleeding hearts.) When a Harvard PhD writes a series of books commonly reviewed (and awarded gold medals) in Romantic Times, that's what you get. And
Of course there are readers who gravitate towards fiction set in ancient times, with their battered Mary Renault and Robert Graves paperbacks, their beloved Rosemary Sutcliffe childhood favourites still lining their shelves. Harper Collins, 2012 But just as there were many readers who would never pick up a western but
If it had only been made into a film, I'm convinced that Elizabeth Taylor's Palladian would enjoy the same public flourishes of devotion that Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm can claim. Both novels are so bookishly satirical that we bookish folks have to squint to see the satire. But where
