Elizabeth Baines

* I recently came across writing advice from A L Kennedy (I'm sorry, I can't find it on the web just now to provide a link) in which...

Well - if anyone is out there reading this - I can't tell you how strange it is to be writing this blog again today. Apart from the mont...

Some plot spoilers. Clare suggested this historical novel about a rural English community that has been peaceably conducting subsistence...

Neither John nor I had ever had any inclination to read this famous book - voted one of the 'All-Time 100 Novels' by Time magazine -...

Mark is the member of our group who has always been the most adamant about resisting hype when considering novels, and I might have expecte...

Well, here was a novel that everyone present thought 'wonderful' - that was the word people used. It opens at New Year when the pe...

There were only four of us to discuss this, Arundhati Roy's 1996 Booker-winning debut - Ann, Jenny, John and me. It's now two months...

Reading Ali Smith's early short stories made me a great admirer, and I was bowled over by her novel Hotel World (published as a debut,...

We approached Han Kang's The Vegetarian, suggested by Doug, with interest and even excitement. In translation it won the South Korean au...

Clare suggested this book which has received much acclaim and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is the tale of four young brothers ...