A fool on a hill

 First, an apology/admission: I finished this book a couple of weeks ago, and really should have written about it straight away while it was...

 This week, the great children's writer Allan Ahlberg died. (As with everything, people will have their own opinions as to what's ...

Tracy Chevalier's new novel is set in Venice, and it's about a glassmaker named Orsola. The author - perhaps best known for Girl Wit...

 Full disclosure: someone gave this to my husband for his birthday. It joined a fairly hefty to-be-read pile, and so I decided to liberate i...

 I've decided that from now on, I'll begin with a bit of context as to how I came to read each book. I find that my reaction to a bo...

  I first read The Whalebone Theatre a couple of years ago. Lots of people had enjoyed it, and I did too, but it probably suffered a bit fro...

  This is a book about a family, the Harpers. Like most, the Harper family might seem fairly ordinary at first glance - but in fact it's...