British Archives - Page 4 of 11

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje [in Library Journal]

13 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Canadian, European, Memoir, Repost, Sri Lankan American

*STARRED REVIEW "Ours was a family with a habit for nicknames, which meant it was also a family of disguises," 14-year-old Nathaniel, aka Stitch, reveals early in Michael Ondaatje's newest fiction. Narrator Steve West – London-born like Ondaatje's protagonist – confidently takes Nathaniel from bewildered teenager...

A Tokyo Romance: A Romance by Ian Buruma [in Library Journal]

14 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, European, Japanese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

“Japan shaped me when the plaster was still wet,” writes New York Review of Books editor Ian Buruma. In his mid-20s in 1975, the Dutch-born Buruma, who is half English and half German Jew, arrived in Tokyo to study film at Nihon University College of...

I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell [in Library Journal]

03 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Irish, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Cats may have nine lives, but Maggie O’Farrell, who won the Costa Book Award for The Hand That First Held Mine, has had 17, as revealed in this stupendous collection of essays named for various body parts that have caused her near demise. Her...

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig [in Library Journal]

25 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Tom Hazard has a condition that's not in any official medical journal. Referred to in the 1890s as "anageria with a soft g," Tom – who was born in March 1581! – is still very much alive, currently working as a London schoolteacher, and appears...

Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano [in Booklist]

10 Jul, by SIBookDragon in African, British, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Ten-year-old Ebo has lost his parents, his Uncle Patrick is always drunk, and his older sister Sisi is missing. And then his older brother Kwame vanishes to search for Sisi and find a better life in Europe. With nothing left tying him to their tiny...

Core Collection: Refugee Stories [in Booklist]

06 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Arab, British, Cuban, Cuban American, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Iranian, Iraqi, Italian, Jewish, Lists, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

More than 65 million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, have been forced to leave their homes. Whether they are made refugees in another country or displaced internally, 2017 UN data shows that “nearly 20 people are forcibly displaced every minute as a...

When the World Was Steady by Claire Messud [in Library Journal]

30 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Following the collapse of her marriage, not-quite-50-year-old Emmy arrives in Bali from Sydney, Australia, where she's built her life after leaving her native England almost three decades prior. Now unfettered, she finds herself in the hostel-like home of local guide (and lothario) Buddy, all the...

The Tale of Angelino Brown by David Almond, illustrated by Alex T. Smith [in Shelf Awareness]

11 May, by SIBookDragon in British, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

After a decade of driving the same bus route, "Mr. Bertram Brown has had quite enough." He resents the old ladies, "old blokes," "dippy mothers," "babies puking," "lovey-dovey" lads and lasses "going coo coo coo," but "[d]on't get Bert started about kids! ...

Dunbar [Hogarth Shakespeare] by Edward St. Aubyn [in Library Journal]

08 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Narrator Henry Goodman self-righteously sputters, resignedly accepts, viciously plots, frantically searches, and plays especially well the Fool – all in the service of expertly, effortlessly voicing the latest in the Bard-updated-by-famous-contemporary-authors "Hogarth Shakespeare" series. In Edward St. Aubyn's (Patrick Melrose series) wickedly compelling, guiltily provocative...

My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs by Kazuo Ishiguro [in Library Journal]

03 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, British Asian, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Yes, reading the inimitable Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2017 Nobel Lecture is easy, but the better option is listening to his crisp, gentle voice instead. Perhaps Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, missed the memo on properly pronouncing Ishiguro's first name, but her introduction...

The War I Finally Won [The War Series, Book 2] by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley [in School Library Journal]

11 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Audio, British, European, Fiction, Jewish, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Continuing the story begun in Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s 2016 Newbery Honor book, The War That Saved My Life , World War II rages on, and Ada is now 11. She has escaped London and her abusive mother and finally has the surgery to reverse her...

Ask a North Korean: Defectors Talk about Their Lives Inside the World’s Most Secretive Nation by Daniel Tudor [in Booklist]

08 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, Korean, Nonfiction, North Korean, Repost, Translation

For Western readers, most North Korea-focused titles cover two categories, writes Daniel Tudor, former Korea correspondent for The Economist: politics and “testimony-style books written by defectors who tell horror stories.” What’s missing are “the real daily experiences of the vast majority of the North Koreans”...

How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry [in Library Journal]

16 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Emilia Nightingale returns from Hong Kong to her childhood home in Peasebrook in the middle of the English Cotswolds when she inherits Nightingale Books after her father's death. Taking over the establishment means that the villagers immediately become part of her inheritance, including a klepto...

The Child by Fiona Barton [in Library Journal]

07 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Just as the audiobook of Fiona Barton’s hair-raising debut, The Widow, got the full-cast treatment, so, too, does her equally unnerving sophomore effort. Mandy Williams returns as Kate Waters, the tenacious newspaper reporter introduced in Widow, who again won’t stop sleuthing until she has all...

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware [in Library Journal]

01 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Imogen Church is three-for-three as Ruth Ware’s anointed narrator. With her convincing range of accents, modulations, and control, Church adroitly voices multiple viewpoints, proving to be more effective than many full-cast recordings. Like her previous bestsellers, The Woman in Cabin 10 and In a Dark,...

Bad Dreams and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley [in Library Journal]

22 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Emma Gregory, with her impressive range of Anglophone accents – differentiated by age, region, country – is the ideal conduit for the 10 nuanced, exquisite stories in Tessa Hadley's (The Past) latest collection. Loss of innocence looms large in many of the pieces, from a...

10 Diverse Debut Story Collections [in The Booklist Reader]

16 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Arab, Black/African American, British, British Asian, Caribbean, Chinese American, Fiction, Korean, Latina/o/x, Lists, North Korean, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American, Translation

Short-story collection The Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri’s first published book, won the Pulitzer Prize. Phil Klay’s debut collection, Redeployment, got him the National Book Award. Even Tom Hanks got in on the short story game with his debut book, Uncommon Type, out last month. Right now, eyes are...

The Vanishing Princess: Stories by Jenny Diski [in Booklist]

09 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Although Jenny Diski is renowned across the pond, her defiant treatise against her terminal cancer, In Gratitude, published just before her 2016 death is, ironically, what earned her substantial stateside acclaim. Now available posthumously to U.S. readers is her spectacular 1995 collection of bizarre-to-rueful-to-stunning stories, bookended by...

13 Terrifying Tales of Diverse Hauntings [in The Booklist Reader]

25 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, British, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian, Indian American, Japanese, Japanese American, Lists, Malaysian, Repost, Short Stories, Singaporean, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

It’s the time of the year to be scared witless – and by choice, egads! Gluttons for fear, unite. And brace yourselves for the following 13 diverse hauntings. The Black Isle by Sandi Tan The protagonist begins her life as Ling, the first-born twin in a well-to-do Shanghai clan. Half...

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins [in Library Journal]

20 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost

The mega-success of The Girl on the Train guaranteed Paula Hawkins’s sophomore title would be an instant bestseller. And, again, Hawkins provides another head-spinning mystery from which she slyly (mis)leads readers toward startling revelations. Nel Abbot is dead. Weeks earlier, Nel’s daughter Lena’s best friend Katie...

BookDragon British