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Novel Niche: A Place for Books
www.novelniche.wordpress.com
20
Ruminations, reviews and recipes all cooked in a literary cauldron: al(most always) book reviews, all the time.
#65090 in All , #159 in Literature

Story Sundays: “Jane” by McKinley M. Hellenes

McKinley M. Hellenes “She is a conventional woman — though she likes to imagine that she hasn’t always been, that once she wasn’t. She was something else, something bolder and...

14 may 12

28. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Published in 2010 by Dutton Books. When I first saw Will Grayson, Will Grayson, winking at me from the hardcover bookshelves, I don’t know why I thought it would be science fiction. Perhaps it was th...

11 may 12

Story Sundays: “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie If you’ve been keeping tabs on my Story Sunday posts, you’ll know that I’ve been on something of a hiatus. It wasn’t that I didn’t have brilliant, heartbr...

07 may 12

Talking with Lisa Allen-Agostini about The Allen Prize for Young Writers

Lisa Allen-Agostini. Photo: Richard Acosta I tell her I’ve been writing since I was 11. A strange thing happens to me when Lisa Allen-Agostini then puts this pointed, precise question to me during ou...

02 may 12

Paper Based: 25 Years of Bookselling Excellence

This years shortlisted titles (bottom row) on display in the bookshop window! A few days before the adrenaline high of the 2012 NGC Bocas Lit Fest was launched, I had the opportunity to sit in the lo...

30 apr 12

My 2012 Bocas Lit Fest Diary: Bocas’ Eve

Last year, in April, at least an entire library of my bookish dreams became page-turning realities, when I attended, and blogged for, the 2011 Bocas Lit Fest. One of the best things about this year&#...

26 apr 12

Reading Ruminations: January to March 2012

Dear Novel Nichers, Welcome to this, the first post of its kind, my introductory entry to a reading journal! I’ve been feeling for some time the desire to incorporate other aspects of book-lovi...

09 apr 12

Novel Niche Recommends: Six Caribbean Novels

Dominican writer, Jean Rhys. As January drew to a close, I found myself in a delightful conversation with two dear intimates (be careful you didn’t read that as inmates), on “best of̶...

20 mar 12

27. Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So by Mark Vonnegut

Published in 2010 by Delacorte Press. “I’m getting better again, taking medication, doing my very best to be a good patient, but then out of the blue, the chain-link fence that surrounds ...

06 mar 12

26. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Published in 2011 by Vintage Books. Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, 2011. Ava Bigtree can’t help but feel like she’s floundering, rather than flourishing, in her deceased mot...

09 feb 12

Yuletide Books of 2011, and a 2012 Resolution

I didn’t get my mother any books last Christmas. I know…what was I thinking? In my defense, my favourite second-hand bookshop underwent a severe truncation of its store space this year, w...

13 jan 12

Story Sundays – ‘How to Become a Mars Overlord’ by Catherynne M. Valente

Catherynne M. Valente “We have all wanted Mars, in our time. She is familiar, she is strange. She is redolent of tales and spices and stones we have never known. She is demure, and gives nothin...

19 dec 11

Story Sundays – ‘Something More’ by Erica Lorraine

Erica Lorraine “When Avery was nineteen, he saw a woman on the city bus. Imagine him, uncherished—alone. It’s not just a word, lonely. Lonely adds to solitary a suggestion of longing for compan...

28 nov 11

25. ‘American Psycho’ – Bret Easton Ellis

This review is affectionately and irreverently dedicated to Joshua X. Thank you for introducing me to Patrick Bateman, and thank you even more for not doing so in person. Published in 1991 by Vintage...

23 nov 11

Story Sundays – ‘Still Life, With Wreckage’ by Paulo Campos

Paulo Campos “Then everything was everywhere. Lowell walked through broken bags, airline seats, curls of fuselage, electronic devices, baseball caps, broken Duty Free bottles of whiskey, peanut...

31 oct 11

Charting Children’s Literature – ‘Mama’s Saris’, ‘Owl At Home’

‘Mama’s Saris’, written by Pooja Makhijani, illustrated by Elena Gomez. Published in 2007 by Little, Brown and Co., New York. This tale first came to me in my early twenties. A youn...

30 oct 11

24. ‘Anatomy of a Disappearance’ – Hisham Matar

Published in 2011 by The Dial Press. Nuri’s childhood is well-heeled, sensitively moulded; he does not lack for parental affection, though it is frequently distilled with eccentricity. The reci...

20 oct 11

Story Sundays – ‘The Man from the Ad’ by Idra Novey

Idra Novey “Twice in the night she woke up and reread the letter again and then a third time in the morning before sending it on her way to the Saavedras where she worked as a maid, and where s...

17 oct 11

Guest Review – Tan Twan Eng’s ‘The Gift of Rain’ by Duane Allicock

Published in 2008 by Weinstein Books. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, 2007. “You were born with the gift of rain. Your life will be abundant with wealth and success, but life will test you great...

11 oct 11

Story Sundays – ‘Winter Break’ by Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel This is the short story you wish you’d written if you were a writer who allowed herself a broader swathe of cruelty over her reader. That’s the prevailing thought I’ve...

09 oct 11

23. ‘After the Fire, A Still Small Voice’ – Evie Wyld

Published in 2009. This Edition: Random House Australia, 2010. Winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, 2009. Shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2011. “He was still...

07 oct 11

Story Sundays – ‘Rain’ by Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith It’s interesting when the writer of a piece of fiction begins his story by calmly declaring that one of his techniques bears no dint of conceit, when, in fact, it is typi...

25 sep 11

On a blood-blotted book launch with Jason McIntyre – Featuring ‘Bled’

“It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood. Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; Augurs and understood relations have By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth ...

23 sep 11

Charting Children’s Literature – ‘Batwings and the Curtain of Night’, ‘Owl Moon’

‘Batwings and the Curtain of Night’, written by Marguerite W. Davol, illustrated by Mary GrandPré. Published in 1997 by Orchard Books, New York. This tale first came to me at the age of 1...

22 sep 11

Story Sundays Feature Launch: ‘The Night Walk Men’ by Jason McIntyre

I think that the short fiction form is severely underrated in contemporary reading tastes. It’s a telling (and troubling) sign that short story collections sell with less success than novels do...

19 sep 11

Guest Review – Jonathan Goldstein’s ‘Lenny Bruce is Dead’ by McKinley M. Hellenes

“It was happening so fast. He had this funny feeling that it might be him. It might be him that this was all about […] This is how you become a certain way. This is how you become who you are.” –Jona...

22 aug 11

22. ‘On Dark Shores 1: The Lady’ – J.A. Clement

Published in 2011. “For a time, a countless time, there had been nothing more than ceaseless water, stinging bone-sand, and the wind, keening; but suddenly the wind died and the grinding waves ...

16 aug 11

21. ‘A Game of Thrones’ – George R.R. Martin

Published in 1996. “Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.” We’re not in Middle Earth any more, ...

04 aug 11

Charting Children’s Literature ~ ‘The Maiden on the Moor’, ‘Nungu and the Hippopotamus’

There is no genre quite like children’s literature when it comes to the creation and sustenance of our most ethereal, elemental dreams. Even the most notoriously bookshy of us remember the tale...

03 aug 11

20. ‘And Then Her Mouth’ – Portia Klee Jordan

[This is a review of an erotica collection. It should not be read by anyone who is too young to read erotica.] Published in 2010. I’ve long been of the opinion that there ought to be some measu...

02 aug 11

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