Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis Jim Dixon has accidentally fallen into a job at one of Britain’s new red brick universities. A moderately successful future in the History Department beckons – as long as Jim can stave off the unwelcome advances of fellow lecturer Margaret, survive a madrigal-singing weekend at Read more…
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini Afghanistan, 1975: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their Read more…
The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce When Queenie Hennessy discovers that Harold Fry is walking the length of England to save her, and all she has to do is wait, she is shocked. Her note had explained she was dying. How can she wait? A new Read more…
I’ve just finished reading So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson. The book discusses the renaissance of public shaming, brought about by social media. For instance, the woman who tweeted a badly-worded joke before stepping onto an 11-hour flight. While she was in the air Twitter exploded with indignation Read more…
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce When Harold Fry leaves home one morning to post a letter, with his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots Read more…
The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman What is it that makes American authors excel at depicting marriage? Where the British excel at romance (as at children’s fiction), it is to Henry James, Alison Lurie, John Updike and Jeffrey Eugenides whom we turn to when searching for what may happen in Read more…
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz Things have never been easy for Oscar. A ghetto nerd living with his Dominican family in New Jersey, he’s sweet but disastrously overweight. He dreams of becoming the next J.R.R. Tolkien and he keeps falling hopelessly in love. Poor Oscar Read more…
The Accidental Tourist by Ann Tyler How does a man addicted to routine – a man who flosses his teeth before love-making – cope with the chaos of everyday life? With the loss of his son, the departure of his wife and the arrival of Muriel, a dog trainer from Read more…
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom ‘You must not become too friendly with them, ’ she said. ‘They are not the same as us.’ ‘How?’ I asked. ‘How are they not the same?’ When seven-year-old Irish orphan Lavinia is transported to Virginia to work in the kitchen of a wealthy Read more…
Funny Girl by Nick Hornby Make them laugh, and they’re yours forever . . . It’s the swinging 60s and the nation is mesmerized by unlikely comedy star Sophie Straw, the former Blackpool beauty queen who just wants to make people laugh, like her heroine Lucille Ball. Behind the Read more…