Breathing Just a Little

This month has been dominated by mystery fiction (cosies and puzzles) for me, with not one, not two, but THREE of the contemporary series / writers that I follow having new books out. These were Richard Osman's latest Thursday Murder Club novel, The Impossible Fortune; Janice Hallett (main fame from The Appeal, which I read early in 2024 and have gobbled up everything she's published since) with her new book, The Killer Question; and Benjamin Stevenson, of the Everyone... books, with his latest, Everyone in This Bank is a Thief. While I absolutely enjoyed all three, and have not diminished my interest in continuing the series as they unfold, I thought at least two of these are not the writer's best work, and won't stand as the best in their series or anything close. Here are a few more notes on each! This was another extremely fun, funny, moderately clever, and at times very affecting mystery in the Thursday Murder Club series. I loved everything about it, basically - h...

 The Booker Prize shortlist was announced about 2 weeks go. The six books that made the cut were: Susan Choi,  Flashlight Kiran Desai,  The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny Katie Kitamura,  Audition Ben Markovits,  The Rest of Our Lives Andrew Miller,  The Land in Winter David Szalay,  Flesh I had already read Audition and The Land in Winter in my longlist tilt, and I read and reviewed The Rest of Our Lives last week. Tonight I finished the fourth book from the shortlist - David Szalay's Flesh. With four read, my front-runner for the prize is The Land in Winter, but I am aware I still have the bookie fave and heaviest hitter., The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, still to go! Flesh is - ostensibly at least - the life story of István, aged 15 when the book opens and living with his mother in a quiet Hungarian apartment complex. The book charts the twists and turns of his life and the many unexpected detours it takes, until we finally leave...

The Booker Prize shortlist was announced about 2 weeks go. The six books that made the cut were: Susan Choi, Flashlight Kiran Desai,  The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny Katie Kitamura,  Audition Ben Markovits,  The Rest of Our Lives Andrew Miller,  The Land in Winter David Szalay,  Flesh Of these, I had only read two as part of my tilt at the longlist - Audition, which I reviewed here , and The Land in Winter, which I reviewed here . I really liked The Land in Winter, predicted it would shortlist, and thus was neither surprised nor unhappy that it has; while I had greater reservations about Audition, I recognised its strengths and said at the time that it would likely shortlist, so that's not a shocker either. I'm a little disappointed that my two longlist faves, Love Forms and Seascraper, didn't make the cut, but with hindsight, not really surprised; and it's a reasonable trade-off, given that some of the genuinely weak books on the longlist also got l...