4 STARS 2015, Jonathan Coe Another masterpiece from the writer whom Nick Hornby called ‘probably the best English novelist of his generation’. Just like What a Carve Up! and The Rotters’ Club, Number 11’s plot is wide-ranging, covering a variety of characters who are all ingeniously interlinked, their links becoming obvious as the novel…
Review: Little Fires Everywhere
2 STARS 2017, Celeste Ng But the problem with rules, he reflected, was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right. One of the biggest books of the last couple…
Review: Call Me By Your Name
2 STARS André Aciman, 2007 Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. But there’s only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out. The award-winning…
Ravenna’s Byzantine Mosaics// photo diary
This small local town on Italy’s east coast is home to the most eye-watering collection of Byzantine mosaics, set in several sites across the town – eight of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The colours, detail and sheer size of these artworks will take your breath away, especially considering their age. You can get…
Florence: is it worth it?//photo diary
Florence has got to be one of Italy’s busiest cities in the summer. It is swarming with tourists, the narrow cobbled streets packed with people from all over the world – but all for good reason. The ‘birthplace of the Renaissance’, the city is a hotbed of history and art, one of the most unmissable…
Abetone and the Mountains of Pistoia//photo diary
Abetone is a small ski town in the mountains on the border between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. We visited on 1 August 2018, and like all ski towns in the summer, it seemed surreal – the chalets, built for snow, transformed by the green all around them and the colourful flowers in their window boxes, everything…
Bath: eating cake and thinking about Jane Austen
Last weekend I was lucky enough to visit Bath with my family. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit, but it’s not an easy (or short) trip from where we live in North Yorkshire, so not knowing when I’d be able to return, I made sure to appreciate the city fully. Bath is a beautiful…
Bath//eat: Wild Café
10a Queen St, Bath BA1 1HE If you’re looking for a delicious brunch, lunch or afternoon cake stop in Bath, then look no further than Wild Café, a quirky independent place tucked away down a back street in the centre of the city, serving fantastic food and a cheerful buzzing atmosphere. ‘Simple food made with…
