Book Reviews « Bibliofemme Bookclub

January 10, 2012

Loving Che by Ana Menendez

Filed under: Book Reviews,Literature — The DJ @ 12:55 pm

Title: Loving Che Author: Ana Menéndez Genre: Fiction Publisher: Grove Press Release Date: 2004-11 Pages: 229

“Farewell, but you will be with me, you will go within a drop of blood circulating in my veins”

These lines from a Pablo Neruda poem are the only link to the past that a young Cuban woman has to her mother. The words, scrawled on a piece of paper, are pinned to her clothes as she is abandoned to the care of her grandfather. The time is Cuba, at the height of the revolution, when the city’s inhabitants are fleeing the terror of Batista

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After Many a Summer by Aldous Huxley

Filed under: Book Reviews,General Fiction — The Artist @ 12:55 pm

Title: After Many a Summer Author: Aldous Huxley Genre: Fiction Publisher: Ivan R Dee Release Date: 1976 Pages: 355

The bones of this story concern an English academic’s trip to America to stay with a rich tycoon.

Jeremy Pordage has been employed by Mr Stoyte to go through a wealth of historical documents he has purchased from two down-on-their-luck spinsters of the English aristocracy. Such is Stoyte’s style of personal aggrandisement, he has built

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My Week With Marilyn by Colin Clark

Filed under: Book Reviews,Biography — The Historian @ 12:55 pm

Title: My Week with Marilyn Author: Colin Clark Genre: Biography & Autobiography Publisher: Weinstein Books Release Date: 2011 Pages: 320

Back in the summer of 1956, Colin Clark’s first job was as third assistant director (as he puts it, “the lowest of the low”) on a film called ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’. Starring Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe, the film was one of Monroe’s attempts to escape being typecast as a dumb blond, but her acting

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Mary Anne by Daphne Du Maurier

Filed under: Book Reviews,General Fiction — The Writer @ 12:55 pm

Title: Mary Anne Author: Daphne Du Maurier Genre: Fiction Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc. Release Date: Oct 1 2009 Pages: 455

Better known for her fiction – of which I am a fan – Du Maurier’s Mary Anne is a biography of her great-great-grandmother. Mary Anne was a courtesan, the mistress of Frederick Duke of York, second son of King George III. Du Maurier effortlessly mingles fact and fiction to build a vivid portrait of a woman who would stop at nothing

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Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

Filed under: Book Reviews,Cookery — The Historian @ 12:55 pm

Title: Kitchen Confidential Author: Anthony Bourdain Genre: Cooking Publisher: A&C Black Release Date: Jun 4 2001 Pages: 320

‘Kitchen Confidential’ is a highly entertaining romp through the murky netherworld of restaurant kitchens in New York. But don’t think that the same thing doesn’t happen here in Ireland, albeit on a smaller scale. Be prepared to be amused, fascinated – and disgusted.

Currently working as the executive chef at the New

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La Cucina by Lily Prior

Filed under: Book Reviews,General Fiction,Cookery — The Historian @ 12:55 pm

Title: La Cucina Author: Lily Prior Genre: Cookery, Fiction Publisher: Random House Release Date: 2001 Pages: 266

Lily Prior’s debut novel plunges headfirst into the heady world of Sicilian life with its accompanying passions for life, love, family and cooking. After the tragic death of her first love, Bartolomeo, Rosa Fiore buried herself in her family kitchen and cooked unendingly, making so much pasta, bread, tomato sauce and preserves that the produce

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Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles

Filed under: Book Reviews,Classics — The DJ @ 12:55 pm

Title: Two Serious Ladies Author: Jane Bowles Genre: Prostitution Release Date: 2010 Pages: 286

In a new series that could be called ‘lesser-spotted classics’ Peter Owens have just published various works of literature from the 20th century that, through no fault of their own, have been over-looked or were marginal successes. One such is Jane Bowles’ Two Serious Ladies. Championed in the introduction by Truman Capote, the

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The Sixth Lamentation by William Brodrick

Filed under: Book Reviews — Femmes @ 12:55 pm

The Sixth Lamentation by William Brodrick
(Published by Times Warner)

Eduard Schwermann is an old man seeking sanctuary at Larkwood Priory in Suffolk. Agnes Aubret is a woman whose life is running out; she has just been diagnosed with terminal motor neuron disease. It’s time, Agnes feels, to tell her granddaughter

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The Last Juror by John Grisham

Filed under: Book Reviews — Femmes @ 12:55 pm

The Last Juror by John Grisham
(Published by Arrow)

In The Last Juror, Grisham returns to Ford County for the first time since A Time to Kill. The beauty of A Time to Kill and A Painted House – his best book by far – was that Grisham took the time to develop characters living in the richly evoked and described

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The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve

Filed under: Book Reviews — Femmes @ 12:55 pm

The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve
(Published by Little Brown)

When Anita Shreve’s ‘The Pilot’s Wife’ was featured on Oprah Winfrey’s book club in 1999, it propelled her onto numerous literary top ten lists. This gargantuan publicity injection made the publishers happy but such high-profile

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January 10, 2012