About Book Marks
Ceci Browning
Recent Reviews
Rave The Times (UK) Strangers is a book that manages to be remarkably humane and effortlessly poignant. Burden’s descriptions of her now ex-husband are impressively cool-headed. And unlike other accounts of mid-life divorces (of which there are many), hers mostly steers clear of damp self-pity and lazy allusions to female liberation ... Memoir writing is often about extinguishing the worst, most animalistic instincts of human beings — rage, fear, pride, pain, egotism, lust, revenge, grief — through compassion, and that’s exactly what Burden has done, first in her Modern Love essay and now in this book. It’s a timeless portrait of midlife heartbreak, and will be a precious balm for those who have suffered much the same thing.
Rave The Times (UK) Gentle ... Each page is made marvellous ... Grytten’s characters are intriguing, unique and reassuringly flawed ... It’s these sweeping questions of life and death that are at the heart of this offbeat book.
Rave The Sunday Times (UK) Cynical ... [A] glittering satirical tale ... Dense and gorgeously spiky prose ... The novel is light on plot and heavy on vibes, but fortunately those vibes are meaty, juicy and tantalisingly zeitgeisty.
Rave The Sunday Times (UK) Really very good ... Shocking, illuminating and in places truly heartbreaking. When a book contains all of that, does it really matter which category it falls into?
Rave The Times (UK) Bad Bad Girl is shocking, illuminating and in places truly heartbreaking. When a book contains all of that, does it really matter which category it falls into?
Positive The Times (UK) Bitey ... Lets us into the secret yet ubiquitous world of nail salons, skilfully opening up the experience of those who work there, who are often Asian immigrants ... Thammavongsa captures the role of beauty salons as modern confessionals ... Richly observational, this us-versus-them tale illuminates a rarely seen slice of life. It probably won’t make you laugh or cry, but it will certainly make you think twice before getting a new set of acrylics.
Mixed The Times (UK) Where the self-effacing Gilbert of her former work shines through, this memoir dazzles, but the clumsy inclusion of photos, wobbly drawings and navel-gazing poems means that on the whole it over-revs ... All the Way to the River will satisfy Gilbert’s existing fans’ thirst for life updates, I’m sure, but read alone it’s unlikely to gain her many new ones.
Positive The Times (UK) Striking ... While short, this memoir is far reaching, and although sewn together in a way more similar to a series of essays than a standard A to Z life story, it speaks volumes about how difference can be an advantage ... Packed with revealing facts … But its main strength is Antrobus’s portraits of his family, which are sparklingly original ... I’ll admit I found myself wishing [Antrobus\'s family] thad been fleshed out a bit more.
Mixed The Times (UK) Long Distance didn\'t dissapoint ... Notions of the Sacred is another banger ... As I carried on through the 13 stories...my enthusiasm was dampened by a lack of diversity among the characters and their backdrops ... In places Savas struggles to make one story’s protagonist distinct from another ... I wondered whether Savas might be something of a one-trick pony ... Still, for young readers with foreign sweethearts and a taste for travel...this will do the job. If only all the stories were as fab as the first few.
Rave The Times (UK) Intelligent and playful ... This tight little novel...with its resentment-tinged wit (reminiscent of Heartburn by Nora Ephron) has truth woven into every paragraph. I’d go as far as to say it’s the best divorce novel I’ve read for years.
Rave The Times (UK) The miracle of the story — which, other than the luxuriant pictures of the English countryside Dalton paints, is what makes the book worth reading — is that the leveret returned ... Dalton’s book seems less a memoir than a call to action, encouraging city-dwellers and countryfolk alike to help to protect the species ... A tale of hope, channelled through the enduring and improbable bond between a human and a wild animal. It’s a love letter to the natural world.
Lili Anolik
Mixed The Times (UK) Absorbing albeit frustrating ... The book is meticulously referenced, but occasionally sags with the weight of its contents. Anolik’s rationale for this book is new archival material...but truthfully it seems she would take any excuse to write at length (again) about her idol ... Anolik delivers a much-needed antidote to Didion delirium. If you can wade through the endless Babitz bits, that is.