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I suppose if I'm going to pick up a book with Granta written on the spine and a dead bird on the cover, then I ought to be prepared for something challenging, but this story is just weird.  I suspect I think it's weird because the whole thing just sailed right over my head, but generally speaking, I like to read for pleasure and there is not much of that to be found in here. It's one of those books that is not about just the story-line but has references that are used to hammer home a heavier point.  In this case, there are pointers towards anti-Semitism, which is a topic that is very much front and centre at the moment, but I'm not convinced the narrator of this story will have said anything to resolve that issue (well not to me anyway). We never know the narrators name, or where the book is set, apart from a mention of it being a northern territory cut off from most of the population.  The story tells of a woman who is the youngest of several children who has come ...

  I wasn't sure what to make of this one.  I got to the end and I was just a bit stumped.  There were some nice sequences where a young girl makes friends with her very elderly neighbour, Mr Gluck, and I liked the way he encouraged her to use her imagination and take an interest in the arts.  All good.  There were also some interesting bits about pop art and collages, but everything seemed a bit disjointed and I felt I was missing something somewhere.  What on earth was the point of the chapter about electrified fences?    I decided to google the book and see what I was meant to see.  The review published in the Guardian said: "Set after the EU Referendum, the first Brexit novel is a poignant and subtle exploration of the way we experience time." Really? I'm sixty five this year.  Maybe I'm getting to the age when the grandchildren have to start explaining the plot to me when we watch a film.  Maybe I should start reading Barbara Ca...

  Published: 2019, Penguin Random House Genre: Fiction Themes:  American families, mental health, alcoholism, careers My rating (out of 5):  ❤❤❤❤   'You are what you appear to be'. That's a phrase I picked up years ago while attending a management training course and that concept of keeping up appearances sits at the core of this novel. It's a family saga that starts in 1973 with two young rookie cops setting up their first homes right next door to each other.  Nobody would have had to tell them that appearances matter back then because that was drummed into everyone right from the day they were born.  Mothers would exclaim; 'What would people think!' every time a child made too much noise, had a hole in their sock or made slurping noises when they drank their orange squash.  (You can tell I've been there can't you?) This kind of concern for appearances was considered a good thing but it also had it's darker side.  Much bigger issues such as ...