Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
==Literary fiction==
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Mohammed Hanif
|title=Our Lady of Alice Bhatti
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Alice is nervous. She's being interviewed for a job at the local hospital. Even although her nursing skills are far from ideal, she believes she's in with a shout. She presents herself at her charming best and it seems to work. She's now employed and earning some much-needed money. She knows she'll have to work really hard and probably long hours too. The hospital in question is in downtown Karachi: a seething mass of patients many of whom have no choice but to lie in corridors etc.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082051</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Evelio Rosero
|summary=''Alice'' is a collection of five short stories, linked thematically since they all deal with the subject of death, but they are also linked because the central character, Alice, is the same in each story. So rather than feeling like short stories the book has a hint of the novel to it, yet the stories are never completed or fully told so it's a novel where you're not always sure what's going on.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668529X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=S J Watson
|title=Before I Go To Sleep
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Rather ironically, 'Before I Go To Sleep' is not a book that you will forget in a hurry. Imagine, if you will, waking up every morning with no memory of who you are, where you are, or who the person lying next to you in bed is. You can remember things during the day, but once you go to sleep, your mind is effectively wiped clean. This is the slightly unusual form of amnesia that the narrator, Christine suffers from in Watson's first novel that is a daring and gripping literary thriller.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857520172</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Amos Oz
|title=My Michael
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The Introduction to this book has a lovely sub-heading - 'Forty Years Later' where Oz admits freely that now, today, he wouldn't attempt or ... 'dare write an entire novel in a female voice.' But I found his open telling of why and how he came to write the book in the first place interesting and rather enchanting and whetted my appetite to get on and read the book. For example, Oz wrote most of the book in the cramped confines of a toilet, would you believe. But for me what caught my attention was the fact that he tells his readers that Hannah, the central character, was in his head and determined to he heard. 'Just shut up and write' she tells him. A Translator's Note follows before we get to the story proper.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952905X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jacqueline Yallop
|title=Obedience
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The story opens with a much younger Sister Bernard - no more than a girl really. The daily lives of the nuns is regulated, with long hours for prayer, meditation and solitude. Everyone is housed, fed and watered adequately and that's as far as it goes. No little luxuries to speak of. Nothing to temper the harshness and the silence. Visits from family members are forbidden also. However, the young Sister Bernard appears to not only be coping very well with all of this but even embracing it. She doesn't grumble or complain about anything. However, even although she may appear saintly she is human, just like the rest of us and temptation does come along in the shape of a young man.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857891014</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Aatish Taseer
|title=Noon
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='Noon' sits somewhere between a collection of related short stories and a full blown novel in that it tells four different episodes in Rehan Tabassum's life, spread over a couple of decades. It explores some large issues though.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330540416</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Louis B Jones
|title=Radiance
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mark Perdue took his daughter, Carlotta – or Lotta, as she's known – on an indulgent fantasy weekend in Los Angeles. Lotta and some other teenagers were going to live the celebrity lifestyle for a few days, with gigs, recordings and stretch limos to ferry them around. Mark's got problems of his own. He ''was'' an eminent physicist but illness has taken its toll. His wife is still suffering the emotional effects of a late-term abortion – the family called the foetus 'Noddy' – and Lotta can't reconcile how she feels about the loss of her unborn sibling, even going as far as to say that she would have given up the next ten years of her life to look after the child. And Mark? Well, on the tarmac at LAX it dawns on him that a heart attack would be a convenient way out of everything.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>158243736X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Alice LaPlante
|title=Turn of Mind
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This is a beautifully-presented book with its eye-catching front cover and poetic title. Jennifer has had a busy and fulfilling professional life as a well-respected medical surgeon. Until now. She's gradually losing bits of her mind to Alzheimer's. Her family is supportive and keep popping in on a regular basis plus there's now a live-in carer, Magdalena, so that daily life and daily chores are just about covered.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554632</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jose Saramago and Margaret Jull Costa
|title=The Elephant's Journey
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This novel is inspired by a real event – the marriage gift of an elephant from Dom João III of Portugal to his cousin Maximilian, the Hapsburg Archduke of Austria. When the gift was accepted, the elephant Solomon, his mahout Subhro and numerous soldiers, oxen and porters, walked from Lisbon to Vienna to deliver the present, arriving in 1552. This is the story of that journey.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546884</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Ross Raisin
|title=Waterline
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Raisin has an enviable portfolio for one so young, having been named ''Sunday Times Young Writer Of The Year 2009'' and his [[God's Own Country by Ross Raisin|previous novel]] receiving fulsome praise. No pressure then with this book. The story opens with all members of the Little family paying their respects to Cathy. Some have travelled further than others as they all squeeze into Mick's modest house, somewhere in Glasgow. A less-than-posh part. Mick is obviously numb with the shock of it all (even although his wife's death was not sudden - she had been ill for some time). It's clear that some of the family, distant members, feel uncomfortable and don't quite know how to act.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917354</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jamil Ahmad
|title=The Wandering Falcon
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary="In the tangle of crumbling, weather-beaten and broken hills, where the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, is a military outpost…" Thus begins the tale of Tor Baz, the Black Falcon. To this desolate place come two wanderers, a man and a woman seeking refuge.
 
Refuge is denied them, since it places duties that the fort commander cannot accept, but instead he offers them shelter from the wind of a hundred and twenty days. For as long as they want it. Shelter, and food.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241145155</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Anthony Burgess
|title=A Clockwork Orange
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A Clockwork Orange comes under the heading of "books you feel you ought to have read by now". Mostly these are books that you don't necessarily want to read, but are considered such classics that an inability to pass any kind of comment upon them suggests a gaping hole in your education.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951445</amazonuk>
}}

Navigation menu