Book Reviews

Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love by Noor Murad & Yotam Ottolenghi

Reviewed by Karen Lane, Need a Read Relaxed, flexible home cooking from Yotam Ottolenghi and his Test Kitchen team. Whether they’re conjuring up new recipes or cooking for themselves at home, t...

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

Reviewed by Karen Lane, Need a Read Longlisted for the 2021 Booker Award, on Oprah’s Book Club Choice and on President Obama’s summer reading list, The Sweetness of Water comes highly, highly rec...

A Long Letter to my Daughter by Marita van der Vyver

Reviewed by Karen Lane, Need a Read Envy, I confess was my first feeling when I finished this book – I would kill to be able to write a book like this for my own daughter (and my sons for that ma...

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

Reviewed by Karen Lane, Need a Read In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and listening to Broadway show tunes. Shy, quiet, a...

How to Get Over Being Young by Charlotte Bauer

Reviewed by Karen Lane, Need a Read “Youth, after all, is a passing phase, and by the time most of us notice we have it, it has gone.” You’ll probably recognise the name Charlotte Bauer.  She’s a...

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

Reviewed by Karen Lane, Need a Read Zimbabwean-born, Paula Hawkins needs no introduction – her first book, The Girl on the Train was a global phenomenon selling 23 million copies in over 40 langu...

The Echo Chamber by John Boyne

Reviewed by Karen Lane, Need a Read To err is to be human but to really foul things up you only need a phone.The Oxford Dictionary defines an echo chamber as an environment in which somebody enco...

Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

Reviewed by Karen Lane, Need a Read The Paper Palace takes place over the course of one day but it flashes back in chronological order to explain exactly how decisions made on the 1st of August w...

Still Life by Sarah Winman

Reviewed by Karen Lane, Need a Read Remember Sarah Winman from When God was a Rabbit and Tin Man? She's back with a gentle read set over four decades with big, memorable characters. Food, Florenc...

Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth MacNeal

Reviewed by Karen Lane, Need a Read I loved this book! I was in the mood for something uplifting and transporting and this was that book. MacNeal’s fabulous, macabre first novel - The Doll Factor...