The fractured relationship between a mother and daughter is laid bare in Hanna Stoltenberg's award-winning debut work. This relationship is seen entirely from the perspective of the mother Karin, a restless creature who seems more of a spectator in life than an active participant. She picks up strangers in bars; has a series of casual relationships via dating apps and doesn't much care for her job in a jewellery shop.

It's been a long while since I last did a Top Ten Tuesday list. Some weeks I couldn't get enthused by the topic but this week I thought sounded easy enough. It's a freebie which meant I could pick any topic that took my fancy. Hah! I had so many options I got myself into a knot trying to decide between them.

Time for another batch of short reviews. The two novels I'm reviewing in this post contain elements such as folklore, witches, fantasy and ghosts for example, that seldom feature in my reading. If I do end up with a book like this, then it's either by accident, it was a book club choice or I was nursing a cold and couldn't cope with anything demanding.

No Highway was published in 1948 at a time when little was known about metal fatigue. This is what causes microscopic cracks to appear in structures and cause sudden, complete failure. Shute's novel imagines a scenario where questions are raised about the safety of the newly-launched Rutland Reindeer aircraft, the jewel in the crown of the cross-Atlantic service. Raising the alarm is Mr Honey, a scientist based at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough , England.

The prompt this month for Spell the Month in Books — hosted by Jana of  Reviews from the Stacks — is Nostalgia. The Cambridge Dictionary defines nostalgia as "a feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past". It's all about memories in a sense so that's the theme I'm going with this month.

Searching the bookshelves for something suitable for Novellas in November I came across Cities Without Palms, a 1992 novella by Sudanese-born author Tarek Eltayer. It's a work of fiction about a journey born out of desperation, disease and famine. It's the story of Hamza, a gentle young man from Wad al-Nar, a Sudanese village ravaged by drought and crop failure. When his father abandoned the family, Hamza feels that responsibility for his mother and two younger sisters now falls upon his shoulders.

My review back log gets longer by the week. In an effort to catch up I'm going to batch a few together. First on the scene are two crime novels by authors whose work I've read in the past. Force of Nature by Jane Harper I've endured many a corporate team-building exercise during my career. Mercifully none as arduous or fractious as the one featured in…

It's a truth universally acknowledged the commercial world views the end of October as the signal to begin the annual madness known as C. Everywhere I turn there are exhortations for me to get a move on and order my "festive food"; buy my party frock and start planning the theme for this year's table decorations. All in pursuit of that "perfect" celebration.

Book reviews, snippets of book news, and alerts about books outside the glare of the publicity spotlight.

Amor Towles's debut novel Rules of Civility landed on my bookshelves as a result of recommendations from several bloggers. I'd already read — and loved — his later novel A Gentleman in Moscow so I didn't actually need much persuasion. Rules of Civility is told from the perspective of Katey Kontent (real name Katya) looking back three decades to 1938 — the year the enigmatic Theodore "Tinker" Grey entered her life.

On The Beach was published at a time when the increasing tension between the United States and the Soviet Union made nuclear war seem a distinct possibility. So real was the fear that the US began dra...

Book reviews, snippets of book news, and alerts about books outside the glare of the publicity spotlight.

Translated by David Hackston For me, Antti Tuomainen is the new Antoine Laurain! When Gallic Books (now part of Pushkin Press) introduced Laurain via his novel The President’s Hat it was a bi…

On The Beach was published at a time when the increasing tension between the United States and the Soviet Union made nuclear war seem a distinct possibility. So real was the fear that the US began drawing up civil defence plans to prepare civilians for a military attack and deployed bombers near Soviet borders. Neville Shute imagined a scenario where the worst fears have happened.

The Classics Club Spin delivered number .... ... thus giving me the chance to re-read a novel published in 1948. No Highway by Nevil Shute is perhaps best avoided by anyone about to board a plane. The plot centres on Theodore Honey, an aircraft engineer who is considered something of an oddball in aviation circles. So when he begins to make claims of inherent flaws in some parts of a new aircraft, his superiors don't take him seriously.

"What I'm Reading" is my contribution to the WWW Wednesday meme run by Sam from Taking On a World of Words. The Ws represent three questions: What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? What do you think you’ll read next? What I'm reading now I have four books on the go at the moment, soon to be reduced to just two.

Anna of the Five Towns was the first of Arnold Bennett's novels to be set in the pottery towns of Staffordshire. Through six novels published between 1902 and 1918 he gives a realistic picture of life, industry, religion and love in England’s industrial heartland at the turn of the 20th century. It's rather depressing but if you've read any of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels set in another English industrial heartland, you'll know what to expect.

it's time for another round of the classic club spin and this time I'm hoping to get something in translation.

I'm going for a re-brand of the posts I use to look back at the month just ended. "Reading Wrap Up" was such a dull and uninspiring title I was bored even just writing it into WordPress. So I'm kicking it into touch. Henceforth these monthly (well monthly assuming I remember to write them) will be called "My Reading Life" — I hope the personal touch will make it feel a little less yawn-inducing.

The second novel in a series can often be disappointing. But that's definitely not the case with A Necessary Evil, the follow up to Abir Mukherjee's debut novel A Rising Man set in pre-independence India and featuring a British police officer and his Indian second-in-command. Like the first novel, this one is a murder mystery with oodles of intrigue and suspense.

French Braid is a quiet family saga. There are no shocking revelations or big dramatic moments in the lives of various members of the Garrett family of Baltimore. Instead, Anne Tyler chooses to focus on the smaller stuff; the incidents and ingredients that combine to shape a family. We meet them through a series of snapshots — holidays, reunions, phone calls —over a period of about seventy years.

In three loosely connected stories, The Elephanta Suite features Western travellers who are disturbed and bewildered by their encounters with the "real" India. Their preconceived and somewhat romanticised ideas about the country are overturned once they come face to face with over-crowded streets, beggars, noise and bureaucracy. Instead of an exotic land of spirituality, yoga, temples and ancient traditions, they find poverty, corruption, and stark inequalities between wealthy elites and the urban poor.

This month's prompt for Spell the Month in Books — hosted by Jana of  Reviews from the Stacks —is Something to Savour OR books that have been on your TBR for a long time. Though I have a reasonably large collection of recipe books they're not going to match very well to the letters of September. It was much easier — and more fun — to delve into my TBR spreadsheet.