Blame My Shelf

My Beach Holiday Recommendations 2018 Having had a recent relaxing holiday – an entire week to sit by the pool and read (5 books this year – I don’t know if I was the most sociable companion) it got me thinking about what makes a fantastic book to take in your hand luggage. For myself, I prefer to take “easy read” books, but equally there must be enough interest sustained without predictability. This is what I would see as a happy medium; How to be Famous by Caitlin Moran . Hilariously funny, Moran writes at a voracious pace, with every phrase loaded with humour and clever observations. We follow our protagonist Dolly, a music journalist through the typical debauched London landscape Moran would have frequented. Unlike previous releases, this one is written to appeal to an adult audience, however it has the trademarks of her style – the poor, council house upbringing with several siblings, journalist elements and social commentary – particularly regarding feminism. The End We Sta...

The Party by Elizabeth Day The Party surrounds scholarship and bullied pupil Martin, who befriends the magnetising aristocratic Adonis Ben. Their lives intertwine, from school to University and there is something Martin witnesses there that changes both of their lives, and forces them closer. Years later we are then witness to their reunion intermittently between vignettes from Martin’s perspective of the past. Ben’s party becomes the catalyst for decade long resentments and palpable tension, between Ben and Martin, but also Lucy, Martin’s wife, towards both Martin and Ben. When champagne flutes are given, looks are passed, betrayals are made, and thinly guised grievances rear their heads. Horrors that lay in Martin’s childhood are juxtaposed with Ben’s summer’s spent swimming in the lake on his estate. I flipped through the pages ferociously, where Martin’s obsession with Ben results in him presenting himself as a substitute to the family for their dead son, and the claustrophobic...