by NRB | 4 Nov 2016 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
I’ve written before about how audio books have enabled me to enjoy works I found too ponderous when I tried in recent years to re-read them – books by Hardy, Trollope, Galsworthy and others. So far, two authors regarded as classic have defeated me – Melville and...
by NRB | 16 Jun 2016 | Fiction |
Sophisticated narrative layering and emotional insight make Wuthering Heights an extraordinary novel. I believe Wuthering Heights to be one of the best (if not the best) English novels of the 19th century, possibly ever. I’ve read it perhaps 20 times, taught it in...
by NRB | 12 Feb 2016 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
I can’t remember when I first read Wilkie Collins’s ‘sensational’ (to use the contemporary term) novel The Moonstone (1868). It would have been at some time in that ten-year-long period of intensive work as an undergraduate and postgraduate student, when I turned to...
by NRB | 12 Jun 2012 | Fiction |
Nearly 200 years later, Oliver Twist is still a great read. As it is the 200th anniversary of his birth, I decided to revisit Dickens, and read, for the first time, Oliver Twist, which was originally published between 1837 and 1839 in serial fashion. The first...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]