Showing 1-16 of 39 Results.
The first great novel of the 21st century uses the sinister beauty of the American Tax Code as a springboard from which to launch into a genuinely serious discussion of the origins and importance of civic responsibility amidst the hazy, blurred stupidity of a country in quick decline. Contrary to many reviews, I don't think it's about boredom, and it's certainly not boring. Another posthumous editor-to-manuscript resuscitation, the book hangs heavy with the clotted spectre of Wallace's suicide, which makes the writing glow all the more painfully through it.
Chris Ware - 02/10/2012 |
J. A. Baker; Mark Cocker; John Fanshawe The best edition is the 2010 one from Harper Collins, edited by Mark Cocker and John Fanshawe, which also contains Baker’s wonderful Hill of Summer and some interesting extracts from his diaries. Baker draws on both close observation and literary imagination to fashion his startling metaphors and extraordinary prose and has an almost shamanistic identification with the wildlife he responds to so sensitively.
Jeremy Mynott - 13/03/2012 |
A tour de force of empathy, understanding and a multi-hued approach to what makes us what we are, Smith's newly hyper-efficient writing approach here delivers ultra-compact sentences, word-images and impressions that bloom in the mind like paper flowers or concentrated dyes. I can think of no one alive who can so deftly and breathlessly sail amid, around and through the minds of her characters and classes than Smith, and after reading this book, I felt more like I'd visited London than the few times I've actually been there myself.
Chris Ware - 02/10/2012 |
I love the lyrical quality of the writing against the tightly constructed narrative.
Lauren Kate - 15/06/2012 |
Humour and heart in the same breath, on every page.
Lauren Kate - 15/06/2012 |
Gustave Flaubert; Manolo Blahnik;... This atmosphere of this powerful novel remains with the reader well after the last page has been turned.
Alexander McCall Smith - 28/07/2011 |
Corbett’s second novel is a haunting high-wire voice novel performed with brio. The on-the-run Traveller Anthony Sonaghan is a remarkable act of consciousness. In his plaintive, touching tone, he eats into your soul: so humble, so sad, so trapped, so true. I love his honest simplicity, his street poetry, his frustrated urge to break out of an enclosed life and how the book remains true to the narrowness of opportunity. The book’s form is its philosophy — that life is a patchwork of mess and regret and trying, but yet somehow we must live on. A contemporary Irish classic.
Paul Lynch - 09/05/2013 |
Vladimir Nabokov; Mary McCarthy |
EMILY BRONTË: Wrote my favourite female character – Cathy in Wuthering Heights - and is also responsible for the first ghost scene I ever read. There was no sleeping for almost a week when Cathy tapped on Heathcliff’s window in the middle of the night and it’s a scene I return to again and again to experience the joy of taut prose and terror.
Sara Sheridan - 19/06/2012 |
Alistair Moffat writes beautifully on history and topography. Here he leads us through that moist entrancing of Italian regions, Tuscany.
Alexander McCall Smith - 28/07/2011 |
As with Easton Ellis, I could have put any number of Dahl’s novels on this list – The Witches, Matilda, Danny The Champion Of The World – but this second part of his autobiography (which started with Boy) is utterly joyous. It’s as fantastic and funny and weird and thrilling as any of his fiction, taking in lions, snakes, fighters planes, deserts, and a cast of characters as eccentric as he’s ever had to play with. It’s completely delightful.
Will Hill - 15/03/2012 |
Paul Duncan; Bengt Wanselius; Erland... Second in line from the better-selling Stanley Kubrick Archives, I actually prefer this volume because the filmmaker's life's work is so much messier, complicated, unstrung and confusing -- while his art is just as precise and masterful. Why Taschen decided to stick with the Kubrickian cover lettering is a little confusing, though easily overlooked for the treasure trove of material within, which
Chris Ware - 02/10/2012 |
My first memory of The Tiger who Came to Tea is hearing it at story time in nursery school. I love the way that Sophie and her mother treat the arrival of the tiger as they would a neighbour by politely inviting him in. At four I was fascinated that the tiger managed to drink ‘all the water in the tap’. Judith Kerr’s illustrations and storytelling are full of charm. Definitely a classic.
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |
Roger Scruton is a philosopher who writes on a wide range of subjects within aesthetics. His observations on art and music are profound and stated with great clarity.
Alexander McCall Smith - 28/07/2011 |
John Vernon Lord; Janet Burroway This book is my all time favourite picture book. It was first published in 1972 (the year I was born) and I still own my childhood copy complete with my name written inside with multi coloured felt tips.
The Giant Jam Sandwich's rhyming text is the tale of a village invaded by wasps (can you guess how they solve the problem?). It's brilliant to read out loud with witty and intricate illustrations. As a child I used to spend hours poring over the details and loved looking for the three men who were chased from the village by wasps and turned up in subsequent pages.
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |
James Joyce; Terence Brown Late in his life an old friend suggested to Joyce that this was his best book, and after a hesitation Joyce agreed. Of course, it depends what you mean by ‘best’.
John Banville - 18/06/2012 |