Books

Graham Norton’s debut novel Holding attracted significant media attention and glowing reviews. Most likely because Graham Norton of The Graham Norton Show wrote a fiction crime novel. Presumably most reviewers would have liked to slate it for some kind of self-gratifying purpose. I hate it when celebrities get book deals. Half of them can’t write; it’s never usually because […]

When Charlotte Brontë called her sister Anne’s book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a “mistake” and prevented it from being published for ten years, I do think she was being rather severe. Anne Brontë’s second novel is not the masterpiece Jane Eyre is or Wuthering Heights. I am hesitant to call it a masterpiece at all, but there are […]

A Monster Calls is one of the most renowned books of the 21st century. Patrick Ness, its author and flame-carrier, is just as renowned. There is a reason for that. A Monster Calls is one of the most moving, brilliantly executed, and informative novels I’ve read in a while. I’m possibly too old to be considered the target […]

I may sound like an incessant English teacher– but reading really is so beneficial for everyone. Reading for just 30 minutes per day can help reduce stress, improve your memory, and increase your vocabulary. The escapism that novels can offer is comforting, and through reading, you truly learn so much more about yourself and the […]

The Color Purple feels strange to write in American English. It would feel somehow wrong and a disservice to such a touching, thoughtful, and pure novel to add that “u” into the title, though. So, I won’t. Alice Walker’s writing is uniquely American, in the same way that Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird carries that […]

The Bridget Jones’s Diary empire is synonymous with the nineties; it has (rightly) achieved legendary chick-flick status; is renowned for being comedy gold; and criticised just enough to make the whole thing semi-controversial. The last part depends on who you ask. But Bridget Jones’s Diary hasn’t always been that mega bucks film starring Texan Renee […]

Sally Rooney has had a stratospheric rise to fame and success after the publication of her first two novels, Conversations with Friends and (of course) Normal People. Both novels have received widespread critical acclaim, with the latter cementing Rooney as perhaps the frontrunner of millennial literature. Beautiful World, Where Are You only serves to compound this reputation. This novel, […]

 Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. This book was an unexpected buy, but the premise of the book had me hooked. A Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars-type thriller but with two black leads who are LGBTQ? Sign me up! In fact, the plot is so much more than I could’ve hoped for. I can see […]

Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library was a Sunday Times number one bestseller. Why? For the life of me, I cannot fathom it. That’s personally, though. If I look at the general state of the world and publishing as it is, I can totally see why. The Midnight Library is essentially a mix of everything this society has come to superficially […]

Never one to see a person sit on the bench for long, Marcus Rashford is now ready to take on literacy after tackling child hunger last year. Teaming up with powerhouse publisher, Macmillan, the England footballer is launching a book club that will provide books to disadvantaged children in 850 primary schools across England and […]

Well, here I am at ten to one in the morning having completed Three Women. Before I proceed, this book – and so this review – is not suitable for a younger audience. Three Women is at its core, a reportage-novel hybrid about sex and power, which manifests itself in the following trigger warnings: rape, […]

1/5 1984 is always cited as one of the best books ever written. It’s supposed to be intelligent, sharp and profound. Instead, I found it to be dull, rambling and unremarkable. Oh, and rampantly sexist. George Orwell was clever – I’ve read his essays and I like them. But 1984? It was hard to believe […]

5/5 Three things are rare when it comes to me and books. First, someone buys me a book and I actually like it; second, it takes me less than two weeks to read a book; and third, I pass a book on to my grandma because I think it’s so good. M L Stedman’s The […]

5/5 Heavyweight ITV journalist Tom Bradby is best known for presenting the news each night at 10pm on our TV screens. But, for those who care to follow him on Twitter, you will know he also has another talent up his sleeve: writing. His latest novel Secret Service proves very well that he is exceptionally […]

Jack Monroe is almost a scientist in the way she experiments with food. She takes the experimenting to a whole new level in her latest cookbook Tin Can Cook. The canned food-based recipe book is food blogger and anti-poverty activist Jack Monroe’s fourth cookbook. For anybody who hasn’t done much cooking, the wording of the […]

Can You See Me? is a book written by author duo Libby Scott and Rebecca Westcott. In the book, we learn about the life of Tally, an eleven-year-old girl with autism. When we first meet Tally, it’s the last day of the summer holidays, and the next day, Tally is going off to secondary school […]

4/5 As the UK experiences a sweltering heatwave which has seen the hottest day on record ever, it’s no wonder climate change is on the agenda. We all know it’s happening – why else would parts of the UK be as hot as Dubai in July? Climate change activist Greta Thunberg hits the nail on […]

Juno Dawson’s Say Her Name, published in 2014, offers a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat classic horror book experience. This book is an intriguing page-turner for young teenagers and one that must be read by all. Mary Worthington, a student at Piper Hall, is at the centre of Say Her Name. Mary Worthington is the real name of […]

Payback, an enigmatic anti-capitalist group staffed by teens, has one mission: to steal from the rich and give to the poor. Its dramatic heists create a sensation. But when excitable Payback fan Tom is recruited, he accidentally brings with him a shady money man, Mr. Ruiz. And he’s not the only one on their tail. […]

Mediocre recent adaptations aside, I really like the story of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It’s a fable of the dangers of self-isolation, superiority complexes and shunning joy. The Grinch is a symbol equalling Ebenezer Scrooge in cultural ubiquity during December. And he’s better than Scrooge. Because he’s green and looks better on an ironic Christmas […]

Kudos to the genius who had the idea to release a film about a being who hates Christmas in November. That’s a finger on the zeitgeist right there. The Grinch is the latest 86-minute adaptation of a 69-page children’s book. It depicts Benedict Cumberbatch’s Grinch as he plans his dastardly scheme while Whoville prepares for Christmas. […]

In the eighties/nineties, Marvel comics was on the verge of bankruptcy. They were kept afloat because they had the license to produce Star Wars comics but otherwise they were literally selling filing cabinets to stay in business. So for a bit of a cash boost, Marvel sold the film rights to their most valuable characters […]

4.5/5 After reading Pride and Prejudice and feeling totally disappointed, my hopes were as low as can be when I started reading Persuasion. It reads basically the same as Austen’s most famous work, but Persuasion is undoubtedly filled with more wit and humour accessible to any reader than P&P, making it much more bearable in […]

I’m aware that the majority of you are just coming to the end of your holidays and packing bags for school/uni. I, however, I have completed my MA this morning and, rather than celebrate this, I felt I’d waste your time with 500 words or so. I’m looking through travel mags and airline sites to […]

Truman Capote’s classic novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s is brief, wistful and filled with a prominent sense of longing from both the unnamed narrator and Holly Golightly, the protagonist. Published in 1958,the novella follows a year and a half in Holly Golightly’s company – something that is rare, as precious as a diamond and as sought […]

Many of us know the struggle of trying to organise friends into finally getting the deposit down on that flat. The search for housemates at uni is arduous and taxing. Except for council-tax, obviously. It’s understandable why some impressionable young people would decide: “you know what, screw it. I’m gonna live with a superhero”. I […]

Author of the esteemed Game of Thrones books, George RR Martin has delayed the next book in the series to release an ‘imaginary history’, of the house of Targaryens. Martin revealed that The Winds of Winter wouldn’t be coming in 2018. The last book that was released was A Dance with Dragons, in 2011. This […]

If there’s one book character who deserves a follow-up story, it’s Tracy Beaker. Written by Jacqueline Wilson, the books and TV show followed Tracy, a young girl who had been abandoned by her mother and placed into a children’s home nicknamed the Dumping Ground. Fans of the show will know that Tracy was very hard […]

Okay, I know I’m late to the party but I have finally read Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. I knew it was going to be a good read from the start as Agatha Christie is the best selling novelist of all time, having been outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. I’m in […]

Writers around the world are sitting at their desks writing. Because it’s what they do. Some writers write articles, some write poetry, some write songs and some write novels. Some do all of these; some do others; some do just one. A specific type of writing which usually captures people’s attention is novel-writing. As soon […]

Here at b**p we love a good novel and we love to celebrate them too. Today marks 170 years since the publication of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, or, as she was known at the time, Currer Bell. In those glorious 170 years, there have been film adaptations of the novel, period dramas telling its story and plays touring the […]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s final novel is something to behold. Bizarrely readable – considering not only the time it was written but also the sheer length – it paints a vivid picture of the eponymous brother’s lives’. The story is bounding and broad, expanding to encompass most of the town in which the story takes place. The […]

For many across the country this week will begin the new school year, whether you’re raring to go, what with your notebooks and highlighters, there will be those who would rather be doing anything else. Well, take comfort in the fact that even in fiction people still must get up at seven in the morning […]

3.5/5 Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca is often described as a modern classic and, by many trusted sources of mine, described as a great novel. Naturally, hearing that this book was amazing made me excited to read it, but in the first 200 pages or so, I just didn’t get it. Things were fairly boring after […]

If you’re looking for a tough but rewarding read this summer, you should look no further than the politics department in most bookshops. Politics books are a little tedious for some people, but if you love finding out everything there is to know about a person or an event, you’ll thoroughly enjoy some of these […]

Five sisters raised by middle class, religious parents in the American suburbs kill themselves. This is the stark, bare bones of what Jeffrey Eugenides presents you with on the first page of The Virgin Suicides. The rest of the book, in a heady stupor of hindsight and painful memory, serves to garnish the fact, to […]

The Lost Daughter is a novel by Italian author Elena Ferrante (Days of Abandonment, My Brilliant Friend) and tells the story of a woman who sets about on a holiday to re-discover herself after her daughters have flown the nest. Ferrante writes the female inner monologue like no one else, and it is what she’s […]

Raymond Carver is an American short story writer whose style I admire endlessly. Carver once said: “It’s possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things — a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring — […]

Porno is the sequel to Irvine Welsh’s gritty masterpiece Trainspotting, and (like its predecessor) switches between the first person narratives of its major characters, Mark “Rents” Renton, Simon David “Sick Boy” Williamson, Francis “Franco” Begbie, Danny “Spud” Murphy and Nikki Fuller-Smith. (The small number of narrators in Porno is dwarfed by the much larger and more varied […]

The Philosopher’s Pupil, by author and philosopher Iris Murdoch, was first published in 1983. It follows the affairs and arguments within the English spa town of Ennistone (‘N’s town’ – so named by the anonymous narrator, ‘N’), particularly those of the McCaffrey family. At the centre of this family is George: reviled and revered in […]