Title: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Author: Agatha Christie Publisher: HarperCollins UK Date: 2017 (1934) Genre: Crime / Mystery Summary: When a man plunges down a cliff, two adventurous young friends decide to find his killer. While playing an erratic round of golf, Bobby Jones slices his ball over the edge of a cliff. His ball is lost,… Continue reading Book Review: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie
Title: Mexican Gothic Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books (Quercus Books) Publication Date: 30th June 2020 Genre: Gothic / Fantasy Summary: When glamorous socialite Noemí Taboada receives a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging to be rescued from a mysterious doom, it’s clear something is desperately amiss. Catalina has always had a flair for the dramatic,… Continue reading ARC Book Review: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Title: Castle Rackrent Author: Maria Edgeworth Publisher: Oxford University Press Date: 2009 (1800) Genre: Classics / Historical Summary: With her satire on Anglo-Irish landlords in Castle Rackrent (1800), Maria Edgeworth pioneered the regional novel and inspired Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley (1814). Politically risky, stylistically innovative, and wonderfully entertaining, the novel changes the focus of conflict in Ireland from religion to class, and… Continue reading Book Review: Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
Title: Constellation Myths: with Aratus’s Phaenomena Author: Eratosthenes, Hyginus, and Aratus Translator: Robin Hard Publisher: Oxford University Press Date: 2015 (c.200 BC) Genre: Classics / Mythology Summary: Athena seized the writhing serpent and hurled it into the sky, and fixed it to the very pole of the heavens. The constellations we recognize today were first mapped by the ancient Greeks,… Continue reading Book Review: Constellation Myths: with Aratus’s Phaenomena by Eratosthenes, Hyginus, and Aratus
Title: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater Author: Thomas De Quincey Publisher: Oxford University Press Date: 2013 (1821) Genre: Autobiography Summary: Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) launched a fascination with drug use and abuse that has continued from his day to ours. In the Confessions De Quincey invents recreational drug-taking, but he also details both the lurid nightmares that beset… Continue reading Book Review: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey
Title: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 Author: Cho Nam-joo Translator: Jamie Chang Publisher: Scribner UK Date: 2020 (2016) Genre: Contemporary Fiction Summary: Kim Jiyoung is a girl born to a mother whose in-laws wanted a boy. She is a sister made to share a room while her brother gets one of his own. A female preyed upon by male… Continue reading Book Review: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo
Title: The Old English Baron Author: Clara Reeve Publisher: Oxford University Press Date: 2008 (1778) Genre: Gothic / Classic Summary: When Sir Philip Harclay returns to England after a long absence, he finds that his childhood friend, Arthur, Lord Lovel, is no longer alive, and that the castle and estates of the Lovel family have twice changed hands. But a… Continue reading Book Review: The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve
Title: The Light Fantastic Author: Terry Pratchett Publisher: Corgi Date: 1986 Genre: Fantasy Summary: As it moves towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, the Discworld could do with a hero. What it doesn’t need is a singularly inept and cowardly wizard, still recovering from the trauma of falling off the edge of the world, or a… Continue reading Mini Book Review: The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett
Title: Valperga Author: Mary Shelley Publisher: G. and W. B. Whittaker Date: 1823 Genre: Historical Fiction / Classics Summary: Valperga (1823), the novel Mary Shelley wrote after Frankenstein, is based on the life of Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328), Prince of Lucca. A brilliant soldier and cruel tyrant, he successfully commanded Ghibelline forces in Tuscany against the Guelphs. Woven into the story of… Continue reading Book Review: Valperga by Mary Shelley
Title: This Side of Paradise Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald Publisher: Penguin Date: 2010 (1920) Genre: Classics / Fiction Summary: This Side of Paradise is the story of a young man’s painful sexual and intellectual awakening that echoes Fitzgerald’s own career, it is also a portrait of the lost generation that followed straight on from the First World War, ‘grown up to… Continue reading Book Review: This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
