Dr Yool:
Duet, Carol Shields A return to a favourite writer, sadly no longer with us, with a pair of novellas centred around short interludes in the lives of two Canadian sisters. One is a tale in the domestic life of an academic biographer, unsettled by her husba
Dr Yool:
Red Moon, Kim Stanley Robinson With auspicious timing given China's recent far side success, Robinson's new title visits (though more sporadically than one might expect) a near-future Moon dominated by the Red Chinese. Starting slowly, it quickly becomes
Dr Yool:
Every Night I Dream Of Hell, Malcolm Mackay It's difficult to entirely pin down what I like so much about Mackay's Glasgow-set crime series. It's certainly not down to its locale - it's written in such a way that, bar some familiar names, it's practically
Dr Yool:
Underground Airlines, Ben H. Winters What if, instead of eliminating slavery, America came to an uncomfortable accommodation with it? One where northern state African Americans are free citizens but their Deep South brothers and sisters are held in Aparth
Dr Yool:
Elysium Fire, Alastair Reynolds A return to Reynolds' Revelation Space series, and an unexpected sequel to a previously standalone novel, The Prefect. That was an enjoyable and superior tangent to the main sequence of novels, but with this it seems that a
Dr Yool:
Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout Easily one the best books that I've read in a while, this chronological series of snapshots - some with the eponymous Olive Kitteridge as their subject, some with her in the background - spins a wonderfully humane tapest
Dr Yool:
The Consuming Fire, John Scalzi While my last Scalzi was a bit of a disappointment, the predecessor to this novel was a very enjoyable blast. A classic space opera, set in an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse, it was as much about it's colourfu
Dr Yool:
Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney Regularly teetering on the brink of being too self-knowing and arch, this novel of relationships by first-time author Rooney finally remains on the right side of credibility. It does go to the edge, mind, in its ta
Dr Yool:
Irontown Blues, John Varley A long time in the making, this is the latest in Varley’s rather loose series of novels and short stories set in the “Eight Worlds”, easily one of my favourite science fiction worlds. Set (almost) entirely on the Moon, or “Luna
Dr Yool:
Austral, Paul McAuley Against the backdrop of a thawed Antarctica, prison guard Austral, herself a former offender and a genetically-modified “huskie”, gazumps her criminal accomplices and kidnaps the niece of a visiting dignitary. Partly to protect her,
Dr Yool:
Clock Dance, Anne Tyler I'm not sure that this worked out quite like the author intended. Beginning as a series of short, decade-spaced interludes in the life of Willa Drake, it hits the temporal brakes to focus on a short interlude in her early retiremen
Dr Yool:
Transcription, Kate Atkinson Another visit to World War Two for Atkinson with a novel focused on the activities of the intelligence services, but those concerned with threats from within for once. Juliet Armstrong, first encountered on the receiving end o
Dr Yool:
A Storm Of Swords, George R.R. Martin What, really, to say? Another enjoyable read from an epic series. And at epic length - this took me the better part of a month to wade through its 1100+ pages (according to Kindle). I think one of the reasons for succ
Dr Yool:
La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman It's been years since I read Pullman's spectacularly imaginative trilogy, His Dark Materials, but it's still as memorable as ever. With its parallel, if familiar, universes, clever reworking of dark matter, epic (humanist)
Dr Yool:
The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolano I'm not one for long books. Especially when they meander aimlessly and the length appears to be beside the point. But this one, which is both very long and very meandery, was definitely worth it by the end. But where
Dr Yool:
Rubbernecker, Belinda Bauer Easily the best crime novel I read last year, Snap by Belinda Bauer was a propulsively enjoyable ripped-from-the-headlines yarn, with marvellous characters and a pitch-black sense of humour. Bauer came to our attention, and I e
Dr Yool:
Big Sky, Kate Atkinson While we're probably overdue a standalone Atkinson novel that's not from one of her two ongoing series, it's always pleasing to crack open one of her Jackson Brody books. And Big Sky doesn't disappoint. Though set largely around Sca
Dr Yool:
Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Lee Israel Now, as its cover notes, "A Major Motion Picture", this slim memoir serves as an excellent - and delightfully acid - complement to the fine work of Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant. For those unfamiliar with the t
Dr Yool:
Middle England, Jonathan Coe The first unambiguous Brexit novel that I've read. Running the better part of a decade, mostly before - but also after - the 2016 Brexit referendum, following about a dozen major characters in the approach and aftermath to thi