Michael Pollan’s Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation is a hard book to categorise. It is not a cookbook, although it contains recipes and Pollan is not a chef, although the book details his cooking exploits. Cooked is a fascinating look at how we approach the food we eat and encompasses economics, history, philosophy, anthropology…
Read more No 478 Cooked by Michael Pollan Book 9 of #20booksofsummer20
Alcohol has had a starring role in the creative lives of some of the world’s most famous authors. In an essay entitled Alcohol and Poetry Lewis Hyde noted that four of the six Americans who have won the Nobel Prize for Literature were alcoholics, namely William Faulker, Eugene O’Neill, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway. The…
I saw the original production of Portia Coughlan at the Peacock Theatre in Dublin in 1996 and was mesmerised. I had never seen anything like it. That production, starring Derbhle Crotty and Bronagh Gallagher, transferred to the Royal Court in London but the play wasn’t staged again for nearly 20 years, before a new production…
Read more No 480 Portia Coughlan by Marina Carr Book 7 of #20booksofsummer20
Tuesday Nights in 1980 encapsulates two things I love in a book – a New York setting and a story about the art world. Prentiss’s debut novel asks big questions about talent and purpose – what do we do, when we can no longer do the thing the we define ourselves by? The novel begins…
Read more Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss Book 6 of #20booksofsummer20
It’s been a log time since I’ve read any Iain Banks, not since I devoured The Wasp Factory, The Crow Road and Complicity in my early 20’s. His fourth book feels like a departure from his earlier, more experimental novels. Espedair Street tells the story of the Danny Weir, former bass guitarist with the fictional…
Read more No 481 Espedair Street by Iain Banks Book 5 of #20booksofsummer
It’s probably hard to understand the cultural significance of Arthur Hailey in the 1960’s. His big, block-busting novels were best-sellers and he was the undisputed king of the pae-turning commercial thriller, captivating readers around the world with his movie-worthy plots. Hotel did in fact became a highly successful TV show in the ’80s produced by…
Read more No 482 Hotel by Arthur Hailey Book 4 of #20booksofsummer20
I am a real sucker for a book of linked stories so Turbulence by David Szalay sounded right up my street. The novel, if it even is that, is structured as 12 linked stories, each of them presenting a brief view into the life of a solitary air traveller. As the characters brush past one…
Read more Turbulence by David Szalay Book 3 of #20booksofsummer20
Earlier this year I bought The Language of Birds by Jill Dawson mostly on the back of this great review by Susan at A Life in Books. I do love a fictionalised retelling of a real life story and this, an exploration of infamous Lord Lucan affair, told from the point of view of the…
Read more No 483 Fred & Edie by Jill Dawson – book 2 of #20booksofsummer20
I have a few Laura Lippman books in the 746 but hadn’t read any before trying her most recent book, Sunburn, last year. I loved Sunburn and thought it was stylish and well-written, so decided to have a look and see if her back catalogue contained any other gems. What the Dead Know is a…
Read more No 484 What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman – Book 1 of #20booksofsummer20
