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Still Here |
49 year-old Alix returns to Liverpool to attend her dying mother's bedside and to confront her Jewish family's past in Nazi Germany. She meets and immediately lusts after a middle-aged, American architect who is building an ultra modern hotel. An affaire is the last thing he wants as he struggles to understand why his marriage went wrong and to come to terms with his experiences in the Israeli army. A thought-provoking, raunchy and moving read.
(Jenny Baker - bwl 18 April 2003) |
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The Thoughtful Dresser |
You might think that a book addressing women's relationship to clothes would be about as interesting as a trip to Debenhams whilst your partner picks shoes for a wedding outfit. Fortunately you'd be wrong. What you actually have is a fascinating social history exploring a complex and complicated story. Add some lengthy interviews and case-studies, overviews of historical developments such as the rise of department stores and you have an entertaining, enlightening and engaging read!
(Clive Yelf - bwl 88 Spring 2018) |
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We Had it So Good |
An American meets a girl at Oxford in the 1960s and the story of their lives together follows. I was thoroughly absorbed by these baby boomer biographies and those of their family and friends over 50 years. Interesting also as a critical re-appraisal of that generation - part of what seems to be a growing trend.
(Tony Pratt - bwl 65 Summer 2012) |
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When I Lived in Modern Times |
Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2000, this novel, set in Palestine in 1946, is about a young Jewish woman from England with romantic ideals about the Israeli state in the making. After tasting life in a kibbutz, she goes to the Bauhaus city of Tel Aviv where she falls in love with Johnny who, she discovers, plays more than a peripheral role in 'persuading' the British to leave.
(Jenny Baker - bwl 8 April 2001) |
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