Book reviews, new books, publishing news, book giveaways, and author interviews

Writers, writing and Dodie Smiths I Capture the Castle

Writers, writing and Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle

If you're new here, why not subscribe to our email updates or follow us on Facebook? You can also add us to your Google Reader. Thanks for visiting!   When reading PG Wodehouses'Love Among the Chickens'recently'I was struck by the narrators curiosity regarding to what extent the work of authors is influenced by their private...

Friend-zoning and Ivan Turgenevs Fathers and Sons

Friend-zoning and Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons

  Earlier this morning I read that the term friend zone is set to enter the OED. Its a term that I stumbled over only relatively recently, probably within the last few months or so, and its only after spending some time thinking about and reading up on it this morning that I managed to pinpoint exactly what about it bothered...

Review: The Empress of Ireland by Christopher Robbins

Review: The Empress of Ireland by Christopher Robbins

    Last year I read the wonderful MacRobertsonland, a rich biography of a once-renowned Melburnian chocolatier and entrepreneur whose name now only rings the scarcest of bells: his Willy Wonka-like empire has dwindled to a trio of chocolate bars and a high school named in his honour. In'The Empress of Ireland, a ripping novelesque biography of...

Complementary colours and A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty

Complementary colours and A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty

  Its like were complementary coloursyou know what those are, right? Colours that make each other disappear? So if you cross red with green'or blue with orange, or yellow with purple'you get a pale, pale colour, almost white Interestingly, though, if you put complementary colours next to each other, they make each other...

Book Review: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Book Review: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

  It is the 1980s, and semiotic theory has infiltrated the hallowed halls of Americas ivy league universities, bringing with it its anarchic reconstructions, critical symbolism, and its anaemic, black-clad supporters. Drawn by the promise of greener grass and the potential to be part of a lit-crit elite, English major Madeleine Hanna...

Book Review: Pearl Verses the World by Sally Murphy

Book Review: Pearl Verses the World by Sally Murphy

Pearls family is a group of three: her mother, her granny, and Pearl. But Pearls grandmother is suffering from late-stage Alzheimers, and Pearls mother is struggling to cope. Pearl knows that somethings wrong, but shes not sure what to do: things are changing, and shes no longer sure where she fits in. At school,...