“The words are only bits of words, lines of blurred or smeary words with the occasional whole word.” When the publisher sent me an advanced copy of Ali Smith’s upcoming release, Glyph, I knew I needed to read the companion novel, Gliff (2024 Penguin Random House) first. It is my understanding that the novels areContinue reading “GLIFF – Ali Smith”
Tag Archives: Penguin Random House
THE DREAM HOTEL – Laila Lalami
“Freedom isn’t a blank slate, she wants to tell them. Freedom is teeming and complicated and, yes, risky, and it can only be written in the company of others.” My attempt to “get a jump” on the Booker longlist by reading predictions continues with Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel (Penguin Random House 2025). I’m notContinue reading “THE DREAM HOTEL – Laila Lalami”
THERE THERE – Tommy Orange
“We are the memories we don’t remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feeling from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting usContinue reading “THERE THERE – Tommy Orange”
THE DOG OF THE NORTH – Elizabeth McKenzie
“They were the whimper rather than the bang at the end of my world, but I could not move forward if I were to permit myself the full brunt of my feelings.” In continuing with the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist, I recently read Elizabeth McKenzie’s The Dog of the North (Penguin Press 2023).Continue reading “THE DOG OF THE NORTH – Elizabeth McKenzie”
THE SOCIETY OF SHAME – Jane Roper
The average menstrual cycle lasts 28 days. Jane Roper’s upcoming release, The Society of Shame (Anchor Books, anticipated release date 4/4/2023) primarily takes place over the course of 28 days, and opens with a perimenopausal woman, Kathleen Held, finding her husband, who is running for US Senate, on the front lawn in his underwear, withContinue reading “THE SOCIETY OF SHAME – Jane Roper”
A Girl Named Tommi 