Beth's Books (and other bits and bobs)
Feel free to judge this book by its cover, it does what it says on the tin
Bookended by two New Year’s Eve parties Ordinary People explores the coming and going and nature of love in a small, apparently unshakeable family. Melissa and Michael move into their new house with their new baby and young daughter. During the course of the year they each struggle to come to terms with the shape …
Roy and Celestial are happily(ish) married for a year and a half. Suddenly everything falls apart, how they handle the fallout will come to define who they are as individuals and as a couple. Author: Tayari Jones Title: An American Marriage Press: One World Rating: 8 This was truly beautiful. It’s part prose part epistolary …
Myriam and Paul cannot believe their luck. They’ve found the perfect nanny, their children love her and they cannot imagine their lives without her. But, she will murder them before attempting to kill herself. Author: Leila Slimani Title: Lullaby Press: Faber and Faber Rating: 7 Set in Paris and laced with racial tensions and domestic …
I was fortunate to pick up a proof from the Bloomsbury stand at London Book Fair in April. Cannot wait to see how it does when it is released in August. Robert Appleyard leaves his northern mining village to walk through the countryside in search of nothing in particular. He sleeps in fields and works …
Edie has left school at fourteen because her father needs her help on the farm. The area is short on men since the end of the war and the depression is beginning to take hold. That summer Edie is missing her sister and finding herself when a tall, intelligent stranger Constance appears. She is kind …
NW leads the reader into the personal history of NW London through the lives of a colourful cast of characters. Their lives cross as neighbours, friends, lovers and enemies. Author: Zadie Smith Title: NW Press: Penguin Date of Publication: Date of Purchase: March 2019 RRP: £8.99 Price of Purchase: Thank you library card Reading Time: …
Johanna lives in Wolverhampton with her once upon a time musician father, post-natal depressed mother and her four brothers. She has to get out. She has to reinvent herself and build herself into a girl she thinks she’d like to be. This journey takes her into music criticism, sex, love and more sex. But once …
The year is 1900. The young ladies of Appleyard College, Australia set off on a picnic. Five young women disappear that day and only one is ever heard of again. The lives of those closest to these mysterious events are changed forever. The question remains… what happened? Author: Joan Lindsay Title: Picnic at Hanging Rock …
Author: Maggie O’Farrell Title: The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox Date of Publication: 2006 Press: Headline (Hachette) RRP: £7.99 Price of Purchase: (Library of Mum) Reading time: 4 days Rating: 7 This started well, hit a road bump and then recovered itself (although the pseudo incestuous relationship felt completely unnecessary to me I know it …
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Author: Maggie O’Farrell Title: I am I am I am: Seventeen Brushes with Death Press: Tinder Press (Headline) Date of Publication: 2017 Date of Purchase: December 2018 RRP: £8.99 Price of Purchase: I don’t remember but I did it through the evil empire (sorry) Reading Time: 2 days Rating: 8 So a lot of people …
Beth's Books (and other bits and bobs) 