translated into English by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky When I saw this mentioned in some magazine or other I had to order it. I was vaguely aware of the Russian front during World War II, vaguely aware that women signed up and fought for Soviet Russia, but I knew very little more than that. […]
This book. I just. Okay, to start with I wasn’t sure I was even going to finish it. Tomás and his fridged wife and his walking backwards. And his troubles with the car. But midway through his story it seemed to click with me and I really started to enjoy it. In a way I […]
Back in 2012 I read and loved Code Name Verity, so when I saw that this was a prequel to that story I had to read it. But if you have never Verity you can still read this. It works perfectly well as a stand alone novel, a tale of mysterious disappearances, possible thefts and […]
This collection brings together into a single volume the best of Nella Last’s prolific outpourings, including a great deal of new, unpublished material from the war years. Capturing the everyday trials and horrors of wartime Britain and the nation’s transition into peacetime and beyond, Nella’s touching and often humorous narrative provides an invaluable historical portrait […]
January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written […]
January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents […]
On the verge of suicide anthropologist Andrew Bankson bumps into Nell and Fen. They too are anthropologists, and are just about to head back to Australia, Fen’s homeland, after an expedition. Nell and Fen are a husband and wife team, although Nell is the more famous of the two. Before they met she published a […]
I would guess that almost everyone reading this blog is familiar, to some degree, with Harper Lee’s To kill a mockingbird. The classic story of a good man (Atticus) in a bad world, trying to do his best, as seen through his young daughter (Scout’s) eyes. And of course, then there is Boo Radley, the […]
Emilia and Teo live as though they were brother and sister. Teo’s mother Delia died when a bird hits the plane is flying, but Emilia’s mother, Rhoda, the wing-walker survived. Devastated by the death of her best friend Rhoda returns to her parents farm and retreats to her bed while she mourns. Eventually, though, she […]
Free arc received via NetGalley Bud Frazer left home when he was nineteen. For a few years he rode the rodeo circuit but then decided to head for Hollywood to play the part of a cowboy in the movies. He never wanted to be an actor, or a big star, but to play cowboy, to […]
In a small town in Alabama in the 1930’s Atticus Finch is working hard to raise his two children; his son Jem and his daughter Scout. He works as a lawyer and has recently been asked to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. At first this case doesn’t have […]
Up and coming lawyer John Mason has just returned from taking a deposition in Boston. But work wasn’t all that was keeping him busy. While there he met Jane, and when he returned to New York she was Mrs. Mason. That’s a whirlwind romance and no mistake. This film tells the story of the Mason’s […]