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Books

2018 Man Booker Prize Winner

Giving up the standards of literary prizes At the end of 2018, on October 16th, the 2018 Man Booker Prize was announced, and by a unanimous vote was awarded to Anna Burns for Milkman. Now you might be thinking that the end of February might be slightly late to talk about the award winner. And to be perfectly honest, I have been putting off this post. Simply because, while the novel received many praises, I could not and did not finish it. The experimental novel tells the story of an unnamed middle sister who is harassed by an older married…

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Books

“The Haunting of Hill House”: Haunting and Tragic

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson – Book Review The name “Hill House” has definitely become more popular in the last year, in part thanks to the release of the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House. But before it was a 10 part series, it was a book by Shirley Jackson. Moreover, it was considered one of the scariest horror novels of the 1950s and 60s. Shirley Jackson was an American author who doubled as a housewife. Stories were her way of keeping herself entertained. And not only did she succeed to keep herself entertained but so too the countless of readers…

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Books

New Year’s Resolutions Made Smarter

Book Review: Instant Wisdom Author: Beth Burgess                                  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐                          ISBN: 9 780957 321731 Christmas is over and we are officially in the 2018 homestretch. And that means it’s that time of the year for New Year’s resolutions! (Woo, cue festive fanfare) I know, I know! How can you be thinking of resolutions when you’re so full from Christmas dinner that you’re dealing with brain fog? It’s a difficult one. While I’m not…

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Books

Canongate Myth Series: Girl Meets Boy Book Review

Author: Ali Smith                                  Pages: 164                              Publisher: Canongate ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Nobody grows up mythless,’ Robin says. ‘It’s what we do with the myths when we grow up that matters.’ A modern day re-interpretation of the myth of Iphis by Ovid, Girl Meets Boy is Ali Smith’s 2007 contribution to the Canongate Myth Series. Like all in the series, Smith’s addition is relatively short, but packed with intention and triggers for incredible worldly insights. In fact, the length of these novellas is quickly becoming one of my favourite aspect of this series, as it allows me to think more deeply about the…

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Books

Book Review: “Warlight” by Michael Ondaatje

The Trauma of the Post-War Generation In the second review from the Man Booker longlist, Warlight by Michael Ondaatje proved a much more intense read than the crime-thriller Snap by Linda Bauer. A Canadian writer born in Sri Lanka, Ondaatje is an author of high regard, having won the Man Booker prize once before for his internationally acclaimed novel, The English Patient, and similarly winning the Golden Man Booker Prize in 2018 (the prize conceived to celebrate 50 years of the Man Booker which awards one book per decade a prize) for the same novel. To all those who know…

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Books

Snap by Belinda Bauer – Book Review

Snap by Belinda Bauer (Penguin Random House, Bantam Press) “On a stifling summer’s day, eleven-year-old Jack and his two sisters sit in their broken-down car, waiting for their mother to come back and rescue them. Jack’s in charge, she’d said. I won’t be long. But she doesn’t come back. She never comes back. And life as the children know it is changed forever.” While a very popular genre, crime novels have never been at the top of my reading lists. Not for lack of interest! I went through a phase in high school when I bought and burnt through every Kathy…

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