Title: The TrialAuthor: Franz KafkaTranslator: Idris Parry Publisher: Penguin (Modern Classics)Date: 2015 (1925)Genre: Philosophical FictionSummary: A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed to him. Once arrested, he… Continue reading Book Review: The Trial by Franz Kafka
Title: Gentlemen and PlayersAuthor: Joanne HarrisPublisher: Transworld Publishers LtdDate: 2006 (2005)Genre: Mystery / Psychological ThrillerSummary: For generations, privileged young men have attended St. Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys, groomed for success by the likes of Roy Straitley, the eccentric Classics teacher who has been a fixture there for more than thirty years. But this year the… Continue reading Book Review: Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris
Title: The Dangers of Smoking in BedAuthor: Mariana EnríquezTranslator: Megan McDowellPublisher: GrantaDate: 2021 (2009)Genre: Horror / Short storiesSummary: Welcome to Buenos Aires, a city thrumming with murderous intentions and morbid desires, where missing children come back from the dead and unearthed bones carry terrible curses. These brilliant, unsettling tales of revenge, witchcraft, fetishes, disappearances and urban madness… Continue reading Book Review: The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez
Title: The Garden Party and Other StoriesAuthor: Katherine MansfieldPublisher: Penguin English LibraryDate: 2002 (1922)Genre: Realism / Short storiesSummary: ‘They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it.’ A windless, warm day greets the Sheridan family on the day of their garden party. As daughter Laura takes the reins… Continue reading Book Review: The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
Title: Dumb WitnessAuthor: Agatha ChristiePublisher: HarperCollinsDate: 2002 (1937)Genre: Crime / MysterySummary: Everyone blamed Emily’s accident on a rubber ball left on the stairs by her frisky terrier. But the more she thought about her fall, the more convinced she became that one of her relatives was trying to kill her. On April 17th she wrote her suspicions… Continue reading Book Review: Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie
Title: MilkmanAuthor: Anna BurnsPublisher: Faber & FaberDate: 2018Genre: HistoricalSummary: In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumours start to… Continue reading Book Review: Milkman by Anna Burns
Title: The Devil and the Dark WaterAuthor: Stuart TurtonPublisher: Raven BooksDate: 2021 (2020)Genre: Historical / Mystery Summary: It’s 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world’s greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is… Continue reading Book Review: The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton
Title: Moll FlandersAuthor: Daniel DefoePublisher: Oxford University PressDate: 2011 (1722)Genre: Picaresque novelSummary: A tour-de-force of writing by Daniel Defoe, this extraordinary novel tells the vivid and racy tale of a woman’s experience in the seamy side of life in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England and America. Born in Newgate prison, and seduced in the home… Continue reading Book Review: Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Title: On the Soul and Other Pyschological WorksAuthor: AristotleTranslator: Fred D. Miller JrPublisher: Oxford University PressDate: 2018 (c.350 BC)Genre: Non-fiction / Philosophy Summary: What is the nature of the soul? It is this question that Aristotle sought to answer in De Anima (On the Soul). In doing so he offers a psychological theory that encompasses… Continue reading Book Review: On the Soul and Other Psychological Works by Aristotle
Title: Lady Audley’s SecretAuthor: Mary Elizabeth BraddonPublisher: PenguinDate: 2019 (1862)Genre: Sensation novel / MysterySummary: In this outlandish, outrageous triumph of Scandal fiction, a new Lady Audley arrives at the manor: young, beautiful – and very mysterious. Why does she behave so strangely? What, exactly, is the dark secret this seductive outsider carries with her? I read… Continue reading Book Review: Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
warm days will never cease 