Which Books Should You Be Buying This Week?
Your digest of the newspaper’s book reviews April 1/2
What is new this week in the book world, well first up, I am very excited about the new Curtis Sittenfeld novel, ROMANTIC COMEDY. I loved RODHAM, her re-imagining of how life may have worked out for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she and Bill had had gone their separate ways in college. It was pretty steamy in parts and I remember listening to it as I drove down to the South of France a few summers ago with my then seven/eight-year-old daughter in the back. I thought she was lost in Transylvania 2, or some such film, her earphones plugged into her iPad, until this small voice said behind me: “Mummy, is this fact or fiction?”
I quickly scrambled for the audio button and switched it to Stephen Fry’s MYTHOS.
“No, I prefer the other one,” she said. Clearly more interested in Bill and Hillary’s fiery fictional college passion, than anything the Greek gods had to offer – sorry, Stephen.
Anyway, back to ROMANTIC COMEDY, according to the Guardian’s Saturday magazine this novel ‘revolves around a TV sketch show based on Saturday Night Live, and dissects celebrity culture in a love story set during the pandemic, much of which takes place via email exchange.’
In Saturday’s Guardian, Curtis Sittenfeld was in conversation with Marian Keyes whose latest book AGAIN, RACHEL (published April 13) deliberately avoided being set during the pandemic.
Both women discuss in their interview how they deliberately set out to write ‘short and fun’ books because, according to Marian, “the world is so sharp and pointy and we need something nicer.”
It’s a fascinating chat between them, and I recommend you give it a read. The Guardian described Sittenfeld’s latest as ‘zingy’.
"While Sittenfeld knows the dramatic value of putting obstacles in the path of characters you’re rooting for, she also isn’t above giving readers what they want – and that’s exactly what she does in this affable, intelligently crafted tale of work and love,” wrote Anthony Cummins reviewing.
You can buy ROMANTIC COMEDY here.
There are a few of the Woman’s Prize list that are now available in paperback and I must update the website, one of them is TRESPASSES by Louise Kennedy. In Saturday’s Times Magazine, Kennedy talked through the story of how she came to writing later in her life, only to find her two-book deal for this and her prizewinning short story collection THE END OF THE WORLD IS A CUL-DE-SAC was swiftly followed by a diagnosis of skin cancer. So while she has been enjoying all the praise that has been poured upon her in bucket-loads (much deservingly) she’s also been going through a gruelling treatment. Her story is an inspiring one, reminding us all to be grateful for our good fortune (whatever that looks like individually) because none of us know what’s round the corner – good or bad.
TRESPASSES tells the story of a Catholic woman falling in love with a married, protestant man in the Belfast area in 1975. On publication, The Spectator had this to say about it: “This cleverly crafted love story about ordinary lives ravaged by violence tears at your heart without succumbing to sentimentality. It reveals the bleak consequences of crossing invisible lines in a fractured community, even with the best intentions.”
No wonder it has made it to the Woman’s Prize longlist.
We wish Louise all the best in her recovery, and you know the best way to support an author? Buy their books of course, and you can buy TRESPASSES here.
Actually, just returning to Marian Keyes for a second because, as I said, her latest AGAIN, RACHEL is out in paperback on April 13, so for all of you who are Keyes fans and have waited patiently for the paperback, let’s have a look at what the newspaper critics had to say about it on hardback publication last year.
This book is the sequel to Keyes’ bestseller Rachel’s Holiday and returns to the heroine who is now in her forties and working as an addiction counsellor. On reviewing AGAIN, RACHEL in February last year, Susannah Goldsbrough had this to say: “[Keyes’] particular gift is the ability to settle the reader into a comfortable seat, then carry them to the darkest places; to make serious things funny – and moving. So it is an ironic testament to her success that she has been trivialised by the publishing industry. But just because something slips down easily, it doesn’t mean it isn’t strong stuff. Her books have much in common with Anne Tyler’s or Tessa Hadley’s but you wouldn’t catch them getting slapped with fuchsia… she handles with intelligence and humour the issues that the question of long-term addiction recovery throws up:what it means to be an addict decades after your last hit; how the darkest of human experiences might weaken even the strongest resolve. Like the original, this is not a frivolous novel; the moment when the great tragedy of Rachel’s later life is revealed punches out of the pages with a brutality that would leave any self-respecting chick-flicker shaking in their sparkly shoes. But there’s plenty of romance to enjoy too. It’s almost as though good writers can do more than one thing.”
You can pre-order the paperback of AGAIN, RACHEL here.
Is there anyone who hasn’t got round to reading HAMNET? It was, after all, a hit on publication in 2020 when we were all stuck at home with nothing better to do but read – except me, who seemed to be on the only book deadline in the world while everyone else was getting paid to do nothing (erm, I’m joking).
HAMNET went on to sell an incredible 1.5million copies, and I sold a few myself in my pop-up shop before Christmas.
I think I tipped you off back then that the novel was about to explode onto the stage in a theatre production at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon. The Observer’s New Review had a piece about the production itself with Claire Armistead chatting to all involved.
“HAMNET tells the story of 18 years of Shakespeare’s life from the point of view of his wife, who has traditionally been knwon as poor, neglected Anne Hathaway, the illiterate countrywoman who was left behidn with their three children when her husband set off for the bright lights of London, and was only bequeathed his second-best bed,” writes Armistead. “Parish records revealed she was in fact christened Agnes by her sheep-farmer father. O’Farrell portrays her as a healer and herbalist, pointing out that far from being ‘this embittered wife abandoned in Stratford-Upon-Avon’, Agnes went on to invest her husband’s earnings in her own malting business, as well as running the big house he bought in 1597 for the princely sum of £60 in silver. It was there that he chose to retire, surrounded by his family, and where he died at the age of 52.”
It seems fitting then that it will be in the same town that actor and playwright Lolita Chakrabarti will bring this novel to life. But do not panic if you cannot make it to Stratford-Upon-Avon for its first run, it will be transferring to the Garrick Theatre in London from September to January, and it is also being made into a film.
But, if you haven’t yet read HAMNET, now might be a good time to do so, and you can buy HAMNET here.
It all seems a little female centric in today’s digest eh? And so, I may as well stick to the theme, two in fact, because another book reviewed in the Saturday’s Guardian also was on the theme of Shakespeare. SEARCHING FOR JULIET: THE LIVES AND DEATHS OF SHAKESPEARE’S FIRST TRAGIC HEROINE aims to give life back to a character that is surely a household name the world over.
“Juliet enacts a ‘stunning rebellion against a society that deems her the property of her parents’ when she marries Romeo,” writes Samantha Ellis reviewing. “Shakespeare had never written a heroine like her before, and Duncan believes he created the juicy role for a particular actor, Robert Gough. Gough probably also played Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Hero in Much Ado About Nothing, and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream – all determined, diminutive brunettes beset by patriarchal forces.”
Let’s hope Gough didn’t have too many concerns of the day about being typecast then…
This book is a deeper exploration of Juliet’s character and what her influence has had on history, society and culture. Ellis describes Duncan as an ‘engaging guide’ as she sets out to do this, examining the audiences’ fixation of her death: “As Duncan points out, when Romeo sees her corpse ‘his first thought is how sexy she is’, while her father, finding her apparently dead, imagines that death has ‘deflowered’ her.” There are also, we are assured in the review, some great bits of Romeo and Juliet trivia.
“What makes SEARCHING FOR JULIET thrilling is the way Duncan weaves all these threads into a compelling history of a singular heroine.”
You can buy SEARCHING FOR JULIET here.
Right, come on, we must end with a book by a bloke… and here he is in the shape of Booker Prize Winner Shehan Karunatilaka, whose novel THE SEVEN MOONS OF MAALI ALMEIDA is out in paperback this week. Here’s what The Telegraph had to say about it this weekend: “Steeped in the legacy of Sri Lanka’s civil war, this sprawling, joke-filled supernatural farce – about a dead photographer investigating his own murder – deservedly won the 2022 Booker Prize.”
Okaaaay, not that much, but it was in a round-up, and I was desperate, and look, who can go wrong with a Booker Prize winner, and that gorgeous jacket that thankfully they’ve kept for the paperback too.
You can buy THE SEVEN MOONS OF MAALI ALMEIDA here.
And with that, I bid you a good evening and happy shopping.
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