new book – and so she thinks

Deborah Moggach – The Carer

admin — Mon, 04 May 2020 13:07:33 +0000

Siblings in their sixties, Robert and Phoebe have spent their lives competing for the attention of their brilliant physicist father, James. But now he is frail, widowed, and the time has come to hire a full-time carer. Mandy enters their lives. But as James regales his family with tales of Mandy’s virtues, their shopping trips and the shared pleasure of their journeys to garden centres, Phoebe and Robert sense something is amiss. Then something extraordinary happens which throws everything into new relief, changing all the stories of their childhood – and the father – that they thought they knew so well.

The Carer is a funny and witty read at the same time as it’s a deep and exploratory novel about parent-child relationships and ageing. Middle class absurdity, fun challenges, and a classic societal dilemma comes into fruition in this family drama that is played out over comedic passages and brilliant prose.

Deborah Moggach is a fantastic writer who delivers endearing humour through a penetrating eye. The bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever, delivers a deliciously funny, poignant and wry novel, full of surprising twists and turns. Many layered and multifarious, it’s a pacy read that keeps you engaged long after the final page.

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 11:17:02 +0000

Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey is a doctor who works nights and needs cash. The London property market is a mess. Leon’s bed is unoccupied at night, and Tiffy only needs it at night. So the perfect solution seems to be for them to share the bed, but never at the same time. In fact, they’ve never actually met.

As you can imagine, things in Beth O’Leary’s novel The Flatshare don’t go according to plan. A crazy ex boyfriend, brother in prison, break ups, mad jobs and supportive friends all conspire to bring the two together, and ruin their well thought out plan.

This isn’t a deep and meaningful book, although it does touch on emotional abuse, the judicial system, and chaotic economic situation that brings someone to this situation. It’s fun and easy to whip through in a few hours, and the characters are warm enough for you to want to know more and follow them. The crisp and efficient Gerty, Tiffy’s lawyer friend, is a particular highlight, with a softness under the harsh veneer.

The plot is tight and fast, the prose compelling, and the dialogue believable. The characters are warm and well drawn, and there’s never a page that should have been skimmed. The novel got Penguin Random House Children’s editor Beth O’Leary a six figure deal from Quercus, and a second book is planned.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

admin — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 09:37:12 +0000

Nine stressed city dwellers are heading to a ten-day retreat at boutique health-and-wellness resort Tranquillum House – an opportunity for healing and transformation. Watching over them is the resort’s director, Masha, a woman on a mission to reinvigorate these tired bodies and minds. But the lengths she goes to go far beyond what her customers expect. Dark agendas are in play.

Liane Moriarty’s latest novel Nine Perfect Strangers is a funny read with acute observation and fast paced plot. There are thinly veiled barbs at the wellness industry, selfie culture, and the pressure of modern society are delivered through witty dialogue and clever characterisation. All of the characters are flawed, in entirely relatable ways, and it’s easy to warm to them as you roll your eyes at them. New lottery winners, a grieving family, middle aged women – a whole human range is there, and the experience holds a mirror up to the misfits and makes them see things about their lives, even if it wasn’t what they expected.

Moriarty is the Australian author of seven best-selling novels. Big Little Lies shot to fame as a television show featuring Nicole Kidman. Nine Perfect Strangers will also be hitting the screens, with Kidman’s production company Blossom Films and Big Little Lies producer, Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories having signed a deal for the TV and film rights.

Nine Perfect Strangers is an excellently executed book with a catchy and thrilling storyline and sensitively crafted characters. Definitely worth a read.

Alex Niven – 33 1/3 – Definitely Maybe

admin — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 14:23:22 +0000

For so many people, Definitely Maybe was and continues to be a vital, visceral piece of art, the start of something new and exciting. Taking it as not just a collection of eleven songs but a cultural artefact, Alex Niven’s analysis of the album, in the 33 1/3 series, focuses upon the elements of earth, water wind and fire, both exploring it through the quartet as well as almost equating it with them. A truly great album, lyrically, sonically, socially, politically, and economically the debut from the Mancunian band was a game changer and a manifestation of games changing. Music reveals a lot.
Anger in songs like Supersonic comes from the Thatcher legacy, dizzy exploration in Columbia could be an example of the unknown and bewildering future many were faced with, the buzzing distortion of Bring It On Down speaking in the same frantic language of disarray that the punk movement had. The ‘utopian language of pop and the wild disparities of early 90s britain’ are connected on the album in a way that became symbolic for a destination.
Subversive and countercultural, as well as everyman, Oasis became the totem of the underdog, the rebel made good, the working class hero, soaring from ‘misery and hardship to a place of towering hope and potential.’. The positions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ were immortalised in chords and rhythms. Gallagher may have eventually sold out, but that doesn’t stop his musical output being something transformative, exciting, and ultimately, wonderful. Niven is wonderfully artful in his loquacious description and analysis of Definitely Maybe, the wording he uses being beautiful and intelligent. Their hymn to friendship and belief Live Forever is described thus: ‘the wash of the guitar sound begins to gather…movement culminates in a wonderfully expressive legato guitar solo at the climax of the track, which rises with considerable grace to a repeated high E before shimmying back down the fretboard to finish alongside the chiming central F major seventh riff. This discussion floats in nostalgia and reverie, but is critical and penetrating, rather than simply flooded with adoration for this ‘ambiguously beautiful’ album.
Niven finishes with the assertion that the real legacy of the period as a time filled with moments ‘when we almost broke through to a higher plane of collective existence.’ Reading this book leaves one without any doubt about the power of music.
Published by Bloomsbury Academic and out now.