Author: Susan Brice

  • April 2024

    So this book was a bestseller in 2009. It is back in the windows of bookshops now because of a new Netflix series, closely based on this story. Every newspaper, journal and magazine I have read of late has had excited reviewers waxing lyrical about everything David Nicholls. I understand the buzz and the enthusiasm. […]

  • 3 Short Books

    All of these were really impulse buys and 2 of the three were successful so that is pretty good I think. In Daunts beautiful bookshop in Marylebone High Street, where one could go simply to admire the gorgeous Edwardian architecture, they arrange their travel section in a very particular fashion. There is a bookshelf of […]

  • The Waiting Game

    In Heffers bookshop in Cambridge a few days ago I was tempted by 2 large, heavy, new hardbacks. The first is this state of the nation novel by Andrew O’Hagan: ‘Caledonian Road’ which every reviewer is indeed reviewing and I long to read. I have walked down said road in north London and I wouldn’t […]

  • Reading Aloud

    Do you like reading aloud I wonder? Do you like listening to someone reading aloud? Many have quite strong feelings about this, one way or the other. I don’t as yet indulge in audiobooks although I know many who do, but I used to enjoy listening to books read aloud on Radio 4. Stephen Fry […]

  • March 2024

    On my hall windowsill is a group of old Pan paperbacks by Nevil Shute. There are nine of them. Many years ago I went through a phase of collecting these mid-20th century stories and became a little obsessive about finding editions of each book that had matching artwork on the front. I trailed charity shops […]

  • February 2024

    I watched Lessons in Chemistry on Apple TV. I had no idea what it was all about but I was soon absorbed in the story. The first part was outrageous in its misogyny and rampant sexism and after that it was simply tragic. However, 2 people who had read the book confidently reported that the […]

  • Bibliomaniac – Robin Ince

    I sometimes enjoy reading a book about books and book lovers. This is a wide church of course. There are very different members of this club. I came across this book through Daunts Bookshop inviting me to a talk Robin Ince was giving. I very nearly went but the trains had other ideas; it was […]

  • Booklovers

    Having just read Bibliomaniac by Robin Ince, I have been thinking about how many different ways there are that booklovers show that love. There are of course many people who are passionate readers but actual books are not so important. Maybe these are the sensible ones, they must use libraries compulsively and are always willing […]

  • Rooftoppers – Katherine Rundell

    I first heard of this book, and indeed this writer, at a U3A session. Coincidentally the author was then a guest of Michael Berkeley on Radio 3s Private Passions and I realised that she had written the introduction to a Michael Morpurgo book I had read recently. I have not worked out quite why she […]

  • My Salinger Year – Joanna Rakoff

    It is always good to receive news from Slightly Foxed. The book that caught my eye this time was called ‘My Salinger Year’ written by Joanna Rakoff. It is a memoir of a year spent working in an esteemed literary agency in New York City in the 1990s. The author was an intern, an assistant […]