Blood Wedding by Pierre Lemaitre (translated by the brilliant Frank Wynne) was my first experience with this celebrated French crime writer but it won’t be my last as Blood Wedding, a tale of obsession and revenge, is one of the best crime novels I’ve read in a long time, thanks to a thrilling plot and…
Read more No 418 Blood Wedding by Pierre Lemaitre, translated by Frank Wynne
Motherless Brooklyn was my first encounter with Letham – who I know is considered a bit of a wunderkind of American literature – and I doubt it will be my last as I very much enjoyed this riff on a classic hard-boiled detective novel. The book opens as these genre pieces are wont to do,…
Like most of you I’m sure, I read different books for different reasons. Sometimes I read to be challenged, other times comforted. I like books that educate, books that question and books that move me. Often I will admire a book rather than liking it. And then there is a book like Rules of Civility…
When I saw that Annabel was hosting a week long celebration of the work of Iain Banks, called BanksRead, I was very keen to join in. Iain Banks was one of my Dads’ favourite writers and his suggestion that I try The Wasp Factory when I was sixteen, has probably had quite the influence on…
Read more No 421 Canal Dreams by Iain Banks for #BanksRead2021
I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn’t have the money and I didn’t have the woman. I decided to read Double Indemnity for Karen and Simon’s 1936 Club, but have just realised that it may not be eligible as the novel was originally published in 1943. However, it did appear…
As it’s title would suggest, the truth never fully comes to light in John Patrick Shanley’s 2004 play that won the Pulitzer Prize and eight Tony Awards before being turned into a film starring Amy Adams, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep. The play is set in 1964 in the offices and garden…
I have all Mary Costello’s books but up until now I hadn’t read any of her work. If the quality of the writing in The China Factory is anything to go by, I am in for a treat with her novels. This is a stunning and affecting collection of twelve perfectly crafted stories, all exploring…
Read more No 425 The China Factory by Mary Costello #readingirelandmonth21
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