The Birthday Lunch is the sort of novel in which a woman stands at a casement window and drinks a cup of tea, enjoying a private view of a cherry tree and an herb garden. It is a "quiet novel" and, yet, a story which is ultimately about the primary importance
Such good reading this summer, so far. In other respects, perhaps mine has not been the most productive summer. But it all depends what one puts on a to-do list, doesn't it! What if your to-do list was all about the books in your stacks? Little, Brown and Company, 2015
Tomorrow, I will be on the move. So many of the books currently occupying a position in my stacks are bulky and heavy, that it was easy to choose amongst the skinny residents. I have one more story to read in Gabrielle Roy's The Road Past Altamont. There are only three in
It’s frightening, what happened to the author late one night travelling on a dark road after an exhausting studio session, forced to suddenly stop because of two shadowy figures ahead. (You can read about the event in an article on her UK publisher's site, here.) Simon & Schuster, 2015
Unsurprisingly, a story named for a main character is going to be preoccupied with names and identity. It's also the first thing readers observe Queenie saying to Chrissy, when she arrives in Toronto and is met at Union Station. Her husband thinks it sounds like an animal's name, so Chrissy
