Elizabeth Baines

Having read together both Jon McGregor's first novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and in particular his magnificent Reservoir...

John, who had suggested this book, and had read it more than once before, said that he thought it was a truly great book (in the sense of it...

This book of linked episodes won the Edge Hill Prize for short stories, and as one of the three judges that year (along with Sam Jordison an...

This photo sums up how I'm feeling right now. After a summer of crazy activity, I'm back to the quiet of home, the curtains drawn on...

Just after I posted the last entry, I discovered another review of Astral Travel that my summer in Snowdonia had caused me to miss. Those pe...

I've been out of radio contact most of the summer (up a mountain with dodgy internet), trying to write but being hampered (delightfully)...

Warning: plot spoil. This was a short novel - Doug's suggestion - which most of us found utterly compelling, but which ultimately left u...

Clare suggested this internationally bestselling debut novel written in English by a celebrated Vietnamese poet. A family saga narrated alte...

As I predicted, having Covid put me right off my stride with my new novel, and as a result I have since re-conceived the whole thing - for t...

I've been away from this blog for some time, at first because I was very involved in trying to get a new novel started - it's often ...

There seem to be two schools of thought about Wallace Stegner, who founded the creative writing school at Stanford University (1946) and tau...

We haven't read many real classics for this reading group, and our usual lit-crit mode of discussion seemed hardly appropriate for a boo...

Another universally praised book, suggested by Jenny, (by the author of Brooklyn , which we discussed here ), but which I'm afraid didn...

It's a year today that Astral Travel was published, and I'm celebrating by running a giveaway. If you'd like the chance to win a...

Warning: plot spoil. This prizewinning novel, published in 2020, centres on the life led in Stratford-upon-Avon by Shakespeare's wife, t...