Our 40-something scatterbrained but big-hearted heroine, deciding her life is in a rut and that she needs to raise her game as a wife and mother, embarks on a madcap programme of self–improvement which badly backfires in the space of one day. The free-association narrative is waylaid by satirical riffs of cultural commentary and family background which play out like storyboard scenarios for a TV comedy series - and is enormous fun to read.
View Today Will Be Different
There's no real action or plot, but this short, funny book is a joy to read. The observations made by Lizzie, a New York Librarian, ring true, with comments about marriage, motherhood and the library’s clientele. All wrapped up in real, unsettling fears about climate change and politics. It feels a little like being privy to the inner workings of Lizzie’s mind, and I finished with the feeling of having made a new friend.
View Weather
Hold your breath and get on for the ride. This book goes from 1909 to 2014 with every place and every character brilliantly realised. It soars and dips with exhilarating power as it parallels the lives of 2 strong women: Marian Graves, a pioneering aviator, and Hadley Baxter, a teen superstar making a film about Marian. It’s perceptive, rich and surprising - and will catch at your throat too.
View Great Circle
Smoking in the toilets, reading ’The Female Eunuch’, surly behaviour and problem parents: this novel delivers humour and 1970's teenage angst with biting social satire. A bittersweet read.
Although it looks like a guide to local rambles this is actually a very unusual, amusing novel. Graham Underhill is, on the surface, a relentlessly positive, avid walker married to a young, beautiful Bengali wife. Blind to her infidelities, or so it seems, he leads us through a series of 15 walks. At first Graham's voice feels pompous and pedantic but as more of his personal life creeps into the narrative the book becomes much more enjoyable.
View Pub Walks in Underhill Country
Don’t be fooled by the comic eccentricities of Irish rural life depicted in the narrator’s inner monologues. Referring to herself as 'Our Woman' and her dull clod of a husband as 'Himself', this middle-aged Irish farmer's wife has her resilience worn away by grief and disappointment, tripping the narrative over into much darker and surreal territory. A modern day Molly Bloom, 'Our Woman' is a character whose voice you won’t easily forget.
View Malarky
Inge Lohmark describes her life as a child, wife, mother and teacher. The inadequacies of the former East German government, the inaptitude of her pupils, her own failings as a mother and her future career are constantly on her mind. What redeems her from despair is her love and obsession with natural evolution. Some prior knowledge and understanding of biology will enhance the reader's experience. A very unusual novel. I enjoyed it.
View The Giraffe's Neck
Subversive and powerful, this one grabs you by the throat. A young artist navigates her way through the complexities and traumas of motherhood and the physical and mental changes that threaten to overwhelm her. Mysticism and the folklore of her Appalation heritage influence her decisions in this quirky and outrageous tale. The read is intimate and graphic, earthy and darkly funny. The, at times, surreal narrative pulls no punches.
View Nightbitch
A sympathetic and vividly intimate saga of the Duan-Xue family with their formidable 80 year old matriarch, incorrigibly coarse father, bawdy shenanigans, simmering sibling squabbles, ingrained misogyny and marital betrayals. The soap-opera style histrionics build up to a raucous gathering of the clan, where we look on like embarrassed guests as long-held secrets and rivalries erupt into a farcical climax. Warning: includes very strong language.
View The Chilli Bean Paste Clan
Four room-mates from the class of '89 at Harvard meet up for their 20 year college reunion, along with other alumni of various ethnic groups and social backgrounds. This extremely raunchy account of overachievers and under-fulfilled graduates, taking stock of their lives every five years, exposes their secrets, disillusions and cheating spouses - and shows how everyone seems to be living a lie. Great fun, but not for those easily shocked!
View The Red BookYou won’t find the biggest bestsellers on Whichbook as everyone knows about them already. But you can use your enjoyment of a current bestseller to see titles with a similar mood that you might try next.
