Book Reviews

The following books have been read and recommended by members of Suffolk Book League. The submissions are written by members and like many people, we're always keen to get a good recommendation.

If you are a member of Suffolk Book League and want to submit a summary of what you have been reading, please email info@suffolkbookleague.org. We'd be delighted to hear from you.

A Spool of Blue Thread

REVIEWED BY IAN DOLBY Anne Tyler (Chatto: 2015) Anne Tyler has written an excellent book, based in her present home town of Baltimore. It...

The Language of Food

REVIEWED BY ISLA CLOUGH Annabel Abbs (Simon & Schuster: 2022) This is a work of fiction based on a handful of known facts about the life...

The Huntingfield Paintress

REVIEWED BY JANET BAYLISS Pamela Holmes (Bloodhound Books:2021) First published in 2016, this is a novel about Mildred Holland, the wife...

The Living Sea of Waking Dreams

REVIEWED BY AMBER SPALDING Richard Flanagan (Penguin Random House: 2020) Set against the backdrop of ecological destruction, Richard...

Tomb Guardians

REVIEWED BY JACQUIE KNOTT Paul Griffiths (Henningham Family Press: 2021) Paul Griffiths is a music journalist, novelist, and librettist....

Turning The Boat for Home

REVIEWED BY JEFF TAYLOR Richard Mabey (Chatto & Windus: 2019) This year is the 50th anniversary of Food For Free, the first book...

Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An Unreliable Memoir

REVIEWED BY KEITH JONES Marina Warner (William Collins: 2021) The title of this memoir of her parents by Marina Warner warns us that this...

Tenderness

REVIEWED BY TRICIA GILBEY Alison MacLeod (Bloomsbury Circus: 2021) It is hard to imagine a book called Tenderness being put ‘on trial’...

The Mermaid of Black Conch

REVIEWED BY JEFF TAYLOR Monique Roffey (Vintage: 2020) When I was asked to review Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch, Costa Book...

The Stranding

REVIEWED BY TRICIA GILBEY Kate Sawyer (Coronet: 2021) When we think of whales, we often talk of saving them. It’s not often we consider...

Where the Crawdads Sing

REVIEWED BY JANET BAYLISS Delia Owens (Little, Brown: 2018) This has been a very much fêted book, ever since its publication in 2018. I...

The Photographer at Sixteen

REVIEWED BY GILL LOWE George Szirtes (MacMacLehose Press: 2019) For years George Szirtes wrote poems about his mother, trying to capture...

The Silence of Living in Houses

REVIEWED BY TRICIA GILBEY

The Wound Register

REVIEWED BY KEITH JONES

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

REVIEWED BY MIKE TUNSTILL

The Rising Cost of Staying Alive

REVIEWED BY JANET BAYLISS

Square Haunting

REVIEWED BY ELLIE MEAD

The Nightsilver Promise