"My God, its full of books"

Part memoir, part celebration of books, reading and the bookish, I fully identified with this and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Beautifully written but explicitly grotesque body horror. I enjoyed this, but it is not for the squeamish in its description of a wife caring for her husband (the libertine Edward, who has an unknown disease presumed caught from his frequenting brothels) as his body literally falls apart. Very dark, and with unexpected twists, this was a supremely crafted novella.

I have previously read Melissa Harrison's non fiction nature books (I loved The stubborn light of things), but this is the first of her novels that I have tried. Just like her non fiction work, this is beautifully written, with a deep understanding of the natural world, and with a wonderful empathetic humanity. It is tells the story of an English village over the course of six months, told through the linked narrative voices of the villagers (each chapter through the viewpoint of a different person). Clare, a woman who has lived all her life in the village is dying, but the village too is passing away in so many ways - everything is interconnected.

This was an inventive and experimental novel, Lanchester's debut, the story of Tarquin Winot, a snobbish Francophile food connoisseur. It is told in the form of Winot's narrative description of various menus, through which he gradually reveals his past, and the fact that he might not be all that he at first seems.

Enjoyable, without entirely blowing me away.

A smart, fast paced, amusing and warm-hearted, study of a dysfunctional American family - three daughters (Abigail, Louise and Harper), their parents Catherine and Bud, plus any number of side characters, such as War crimes Wes and Miss Winkle. This was slightly outside my genre comfort zone, and it treads a fine line of absurdist whimsy at times, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.