Nothing says Christmas like a bottle of perfume and a book under the tree. Who could want more? Books and perfume make the best last-minute gifts. Ideal.
Tag Archives: Fiction
The Long Forgotten by David Whitehouse
What do you do if your memories aren’t your own? Continue reading The Long Forgotten by David Whitehouse
Fragrance and Fiction
I have written an article for The Spectator Life online about Fragrance and Fiction. Click here to read it.
Lullaby by Leila Slimani Review
It is always a strange dynamic, being a nanny for a family. The battle of power, parents relinquishing control for the first time… it can take a little while to adjust. Continue reading Lullaby by Leila Slimani Review
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng Review
People who live in Shaker Heights abide by the rules. But not Mia Warren, Shaker’s latest resident who has rented a flat from Mrs Richardson. She moves in with her teenage daughter Pearl and their lives become entwined with the Richardsons and the community. Continue reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng Review
Christmas Book Gift Guide
Imagine receiving a pile of books like this on Christmas Day! I, for one, would be thrilled. This is my list of To Be Read this Christmas. Some new releases, some that have been released this year or a bit before… Continue reading Christmas Book Gift Guide
How To Be Human by Paula Cocozza Review
The fox in oneiterature is a cunning creature of cleverness and wisdom. In his book ‘Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art’ Lewis Hyde observes the symbolism of the fox: ‘Folklore about foxes has it that a fox, pursued by the hounds, will sometimes run a distance and then double back on its own tracks; when the hounds come to the place where the fox turned they are flummoxed and wander around barking at one another.’ It is this pattern, sewn like layered stitches that ricochet back and forth that we see so expertly handled and tricksily explored in Paula Cocozza’s debut novel ‘How To Be Human’. Continue reading How To Be Human by Paula Cocozza Review
All Our Wrong Todays Review
Tom Barren comes from the world we were supposed to have. One where if you have a black eye you have a home medical drone ice it; if you get a cut, medical technicians help you with skin-regeneration lamps; the streets are filled with buildings that are ‘encased in landscape emulators to give you the view you’d have if no other structures existed to block it’. But something goes wrong. Continue reading All Our Wrong Todays Review
Legoland by Gerard Woodward
Literature is full of ‘doubles’: characters who seem to move in tandem; or twins, whose familial bond and similarities are frequently employed for farcical effect. In Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’, for example, the sense of a clear identity becomes a tangled mess as Viola, in disguise as a boy called Cesario, falls in love with Duke Orsino, who loves Olivia; Viola has to deliver Orsino’s love letters to Olivia, who quickly falls in love with her as Cesario. Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother who she thought had died, enters on stage, and Olivia is soon smitten with him.
Where was I?
The High Mountains of Portugal
The High Mountains of Portugal is comprised of three stories whose connection become clear throughout the book: the first, and strongest in my opinion, features Tomás in 1904 who discovers a journal, untouched since it was written by a Father Ulisses in the mid-seventeenth century, which details an object that he has made. Tomás makes it his mission to find the object. It chronicles his journey (in one of the very first Renault cars) through the high mountains of Portugal.