Archives
The Quickening Maze
Friday, January 22 2010
Missed out on the Booker but still a book well worth reading. Mixing real characters such as mad poet John Clare and the Tennyson brothers Alfred and Septimus, Foulds describes the world of High Beach a private asylum whose inmates are looked after by Dr Matthew Allen whilst nature takes its course outside the gates.
Nine Lives
Friday, January 22 2010
Author of White Mughals recounts the lives of nine people he meets on his travels around his beloved India. From a reluctant prostitute who pledges her daughters to the same life to a nun who tests herself in the extreme it is the force of belief and religion that adds an extra dimension to ordinary lives.
Pirate Latitudes
Friday, January 22 2010
Adventure on the high Caribbean seas from the author of Jurassic Park and Andromeda Strain- a much changed subject from his usual. Sad that this is his last novel. Reads like cross between Cornwell's Sharpe and Stevenson's Treasure Island.
Brooklyn
Friday, January 22 2010
Worthy winner of this year's Costa Award for Fiction. Moving from Ireland to New York to find work Eilis Lacey suffers heartbreak, love and homesickness but on return to Ireland discovers she has to make other hard choices after word of her friendship becomes common knowledge..
Lush
Friday, January 22 2010
Going overnight from being part of happy couple with a future to single woman hanging onto her job by her fingertips Lydia's life is rolling out of control and she needs to work through some other problems too. A tale of modern social life. Good holiday reading also a good topic for bookclub discussion.
Emma’s Table
Friday, January 22 2010
Emma Sutton,a character who is so obviously modeled on Martha Stewart, has just come out of prison for tax evasion, returning to her glitzy life is an option but she also has it in her to do some good just what evolves in this story is a bit of a heart string-pull read. Light but fun.
REVIEWS
BOOKS with Doris Mousdale
Valvona and Crolla A Year at an Italian Table
From Distant Villages - The Lives and Times of Croatian Settlers in New Zealand 1858-1958
Big Star — the new New Zealand website for children's reading and books.
www.bigstar.co.nz