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Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

October 27, 2025

katabasis

I’ve read and enjoyed both of R.F. Kuang’s adult novels (Babel, Yellowface) so was looking forward to her latest, Katabasis. A Greek word meaning “going down or descending” this chunky novel is about Alice Law, an American student getting her graduate degree in Magick from Cambridge. The title refers to Alice’s descent into Hell to retrieve the soul of her academic advisor, the ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: England, fantasy, literary

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett

June 11, 2025

eudora

I’m moving away from terror today with The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett. Eudora is 85 years old, has never married, and lives quietly in her London rowhouse. She’s in reasonable health, but is tired of the idiocy of the modern world and afraid that because she has no family she’s going to spend her last days in a government facility with doctors trying to prolong her ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: aging, book clubs, England, women

Is She Really Going Out With Him?

April 17, 2025

really going

Because we’re all still recovering from any number of financial upheavals, be it taxes or the stock market I’m sticking with easy reading that pays off. Is She Really Going Out With Him? has a very similar premise to Monday’s book—a single woman at a media company forced out of her professional comfort zone in an effort to save her job. Also, in both cases it involves the world ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: England, rom-com, vacation reading

The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts

April 7, 2025

wildes

Coming from a family where wit (largely sarcasm, but still) is a love language I’ve always been intrigued by Oscar Wilde. I’ve read his works, seen movie adaptations of his plays, and even read about his tumultuous and ultimately tragic life. Now comes The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts by Louis Bayard, an inventive take on the impact on his family of Wilde’s personal life. In ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: England, historical

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

February 7, 2025

behind the scenes

Ruby Lennox has no intention of waiting to be noticed. She is the front and center, the axis in the familial wheel that is Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum. The novel begins with her announcing her own conception when her father drunkenly impregnates her mother. From this instant on we journey with Ruby through a family saga that sifts and shifts from the late ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: childhood, coming-of-age, England, family saga, historical

Instructions for a Heatwave

January 16, 2025

instructions

In 1976 England was in the midst of a terrible drought and heat wave. It’s an inauspicious and unexpected time for a happily married, retired man to go missing, but Robert does, taking only his keys and his passport. His wife Gretta is left in a frazzled state and his adult children have all been called to come home and look for him in Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, Instructions for ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, England, family, historical, literary

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