Review of Jim Grimsley’s ‘Boulevard’

I’m just popping in to say that my latest review, of Jim Grimsley’s New Orleans-set novel ‘Boulevard’, is available in Issue 16 of Forbidden Fruit Magazine.
“Grimsley’s writing is amazing. In any other context this would be called literature; the fact that he’s writing about sleaze doesn’t detract from the elegance and sheer cleverness of his [...]

A smattering of reviews

I’ve been having problems finishing books lately; I’ve picked up several and ended up putting them down again, for various reasons. Some I’m hoping to go back to in a few weeks or months, others probably not. Just for the record, here’s a brief round-up of the ones I’ve been struggling with:
‘The Historian’ [...]

Review accepted

Here’s some good news – I’ve just had my review of Jim Grimsley’s ‘Boulevard’ accepted for the non-fiction section of Forbidden Fruit. The book is a gay ’slice of life’ novel set in 1970s New Orleans, and very interesting for a number of reasons.
The review is due out in August and I’ll post another [...]

Holidays

There won’t be any new reviews on the site for a few days, because I’m off on holiday for a week to ten days.  I’ve got a stack of books to read while I’m away and will hopefully pop some thoughts about them here once I’m back. 

New review

Just a note to say I’ve put a review of Bill Bryson’s ‘Notes From a Small Island’ up at the new Britwriters’ Blog; if you’d like to read it feel free to head on over.

‘The Linguist’ by Sebastian Beaumont

This book sounded absolutely wonderful when I first picked it up off the library shelf. “A chilling story of the aftermath of a love triangle and the complexities of self discovery, therapy and reconciliation”, it beguilingly said. Or how about, “Howard, 32, a translator, interpreter and prostitute, fell in love with Corinne. Her husband Matthew [...]

A boxfull of book reviews

Hi and welcome to The Sharpened Quill, where over the next few weeks I’ll be transferring some of my vast and growing collection of book reviews.  I rarely have my nose far from a book and often jot a few thoughts as to why I did or didn’t like it, and unless you pack and [...]