My reading year began with Marina Endicott's New Year's Eve (2011), written with literacy front-of-mind; its vocabulary, structure and tone are meant to ease the passage for readers with varying degrees of ease reading in English. It begins simply: "The snow started before we left home." Despite its brevity ,
Once again, my idea of reading more non-fiction this year didn't materialize. During Non-Fiction November, so many people were actually reading books that I have been meaning to read but I picked up a novel or collection instead. Nonetheless, I've squeezed in a few. Julia Shaw's The Memory Illusion (2016) Memory
In the wake of my IFOA reading list and the literary prizelists of the season, my November reading felt relatively whimsical. Without duedates attached to the majority of my reading, it was a pleasure to slip into volumes which had sat untouched in recent weeks. Each of these three volumes covers,
In which I discuss some of the skinny volumes which have kept me company while on the move, while heavier volumes (like Steven Price's By Gaslight and Ami McKay's The Witches of New York) stayed home. The Selected Poetry of Ryszard Kapuściński is the first in the International Translation Series
What's interesting about each of these novels is that none fits a traditional model in the suspense genre. Shari Lapena's The Couple Next Door is the closest to a conventional thriller. But even her novel spends more time on characterization and atmosphere than many loyal genre readers would tolerate. Nonetheless, she
