by Maria Roden | Jul 16, 2024 | Book review, Fiction
I found this book totally uplifting, charming and hilarious but with a sprinkling of trauma and unexpected violence! Marjorie Benson gives up her school teaching job to go on an expedition to the South Pacific to find the Golden Beetle of New Caledonia, an insect...
by Maria Roden | Jul 1, 2024 | Book review, Fiction
This debut novel by Yael van der Wouden is full of tension and had me intrigued from the first page. The book is set in Holland in the early 1960s and centers around a house currently occupied by a single woman called Isabel. We learn that Isabel has grown up in the...
by Maria Roden | Apr 1, 2024 | Book review, Fiction
A mysterious postcard with no signature or explanation arrives one morning at the author’s mother’s house. Just four names are written on the card – Ephraim, Emma, Noemie, and Jacques, four relatives all killed at Auschwitz. Who sent it and what does it mean?...
by Maria Roden | Mar 1, 2024 | Book review, Fiction
I must admit that I haven’t actually read Three Men in a Boat but only listened to it on audio narrated by Martin Jarvis. It is one of the funniest laugh-out-loud books I have ever heard! It is incredible to think that it was written in 1889 and still has much...
by Maria Roden | Feb 1, 2024 | Book review, Fiction
Second Best by David Foenkinos imagines the life of the young actor who was runner-up for choice of the character of Harry Potter in the 8 movies following the success of the books by J K Rowling. Martin Hill is ten years old, crazy about Arsenal and through no real...
by Maria Roden | Jan 1, 2024 | Book review, Fiction
The best novels take you on an unexpected journey and make you stop and think and relate on so many levels. This was one of those! Lessons covers so many aspects of history, politics, culture, family dynamics, marriage, love, loss and grief all through the life...
