A Novel Review Book Podcast

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com A book can change your life. But what does that mean? What is an influential book? It seems, on the surface like a simple topic, but really it is intensely personal. Any book can be the change that you need at any point in your life. When I was tagged in this challenge to come up with a list of 5 books that would change your life...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com A short story is a brief glimpse into a different world. In Widow Fantasies, a collection of 33 short stories, we are transported 33 times into the visceral and violent beauty of the lives of women. Author Hollay Ghadery delves and dissects with sharp language that cuts us to our core as each story peels back a different layer of...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com A feisty heroine, Lyra, teams up with armoured polar bears and her soul-shaped demon to take on a corrupt Church, travel to parallel worlds, and challenge destiny itself. It’s a dazzling tale where science meets magic, leaving readers uncertain and questioning everything — including dust! Painting: Today I painted the Northern Li...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid is a razor-sharp dissection of identity, belonging, and the blurred lines between love and loyalty. Through the eyes of Changez, a charming Princeton graduate, we witness a tug-of-war between the American Dream and his Pakistani roots. Hamid's storytelling is as seductive as it is unse...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com James Baldwin’s Another Country is like jazz in prose—sultry, unpredictable, and brimming with soul. Set in 1950s New York, it dances through the lives of artists, misfits, and lovers, exposing raw truths about race, sexuality, and human connection. Baldwin’s characters don’t just live; they burn, ache, and unravel. The novel pai...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com A man who can never die traipsing through the annals of history. But the thing is, for him it isn’t history and instead, just the present day. A sweeping novel in which the main character adopts many names, takes on many lives and experiences the rise and fall of empires. And in that rise and fall, there is the constant – Stan. T...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com I open at the close and today, after 7 books and 7 months, we come to the end of the Harry Potter journey. We are back for the final time for the magical finale where wands are swapped, lives are lost, and Horcruxes take the ultimate beating. It's a dark whirlwind of cloak-and-dagger secrets—literally—and Dumbledore’s master plan...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively is a clever, kaleidoscopic dive into the memories of Claudia Hampton. Weaving through time, it’s like history told by an unreliable yet fascinating narrator, blending love, war, and introspection. Lively’s writing is sharp and witty, offering both sweeping moments and intimate detail, all while blurr...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com 24 years into the century is surely the best time to look back and decide which books are the best books of the 21st century surely? A solid list on flimsy foundations that will most certainly be changed year on year for the next 76 years, or until I die.. whichever comes first! Painting: I painted a book atop a podium Some of th...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com The names Bond, James Bond. The introduction to one of literatures most famous spies. The man who smokes 70 cigarettes a day. A high-stakes game of words and cards, where James Bond, suave as a martini and sharp as a razor's edge, gambles his heart and lives on the turn of a card. A lyrical dance of danger, laced with tuxedos and...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com Back again we go to Hogwarts for Harry’s 6th year of mayhem and madness. A novel in which so much is the same and yet there is a world of difference. The threatening tension from previous books of Voldemort is now realised and defined. And in that, a lifting of tension. We are free to indulge in the magically mundane and enjoy th...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com The Novella. The Goldilocks length. Not too short, not too long, but that being said, a novella is tough to pull off. What is it that makes a good novella? Is it the length, the story, the characters? There might never be a correct answer to such a question – just a personal preference. Well, this week, tune in to hear about the...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com Buying a book is the combining moment of pure excitement meeting the expectation of the unknown. But what happens when you buy a book, and it doesn’t live up to your expectations? It is bound to happen; it is impossible to like everything and be honest to yourself, so tune in this week to listen to my honest thoughts about 3 book...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com You are on a train isolated in the middle of a desert. Everyone you are with is capable of committing murder and getting away with it, but also solving murders and framing others. A melting pot of mystery and ego all wrapped up in this year’s Mystery Writers Society annual event. And then, the best and worst thing that can happen...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com Where there is a Weyward there is a way. A novel about three women told through three stories threaded together by similar circumstances. Abuse of some sort and a connection to the natural world. Men labelled them as witches, but a name given to you is not a definition to who you are or who you have to become. Weyward is the stor...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com Harry, Hogwarts, chaos. Three things that seem to come around every year in Harry’s life and this year is no different. Only the chaos this year comes from the external threat of the dark lord Voldemort who is large and attempting to be in charge, mixed with a little political drama as the ministry for magic interferes at Hogwart...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com A book that haunts you, or maybe you are haunting it? Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House is an anxiety inducing horror story that puts the reader in two minds about the nature of haunting. Playing with the English language as much as the reader, Jackson places doubt on both sides as to the reality of this book with an...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com A war that divides a family, divides a city and a country. A girl that grows into a woman moulded by her experiences, but never letting them define who she is. Zulaikha moves through life with an honesty towards it, but a resilience to what it throws at her. This sweeping debut novel explores the resilience of humanity in the fac...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com The final chapter in the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and unsurprisingly, he is still as unpleasant as always. Unaccepting of his situation and blaming everyone along the way, Thomas takes the back seat to his own story. The land faces all-out war in this brutal tale of attrition where only those that have something to fig...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com We are back at Hogwarts for Harry’s 4th years of mischief and mayhem. Between battling dragons, dodging Death Eaters, and navigating the treacherous waters of the Yule Ball, Harry juggles more than just curses. As the Triwizard Tournament unfolds, he learns that Voldemort’s return is as inevitable as Snape’s snarky remarks in thi...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com ‘You don’t get it Tony, you never did.’ Words that echo through this book and we too as the reader become Tony, unsure of what we are missing. A blend of history and the self- delusions of our past, this Booker Prize winning novel delicately unnerves you through the infernal mystery of time and life, and how they interplay within...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com A world of infinite halls where Piranesi roams and makes his home. There are 16 people from this world with only two alive – himself and ‘The other’. In this world, they lead different lives as Piranesi tracks the events of the years that pass. But as we delve deeper into the cavernous halls, we also delve into the life of Pirane...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com   Two novellas for the price of one and it's a bargain with the skill of Nora Gold on full display. Two stories that navigate different issues in two very different ways. But both the stories are similar in that they require inflection and honesty - an inflective process and honesty that transfers to the reader with every page tu...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com We are back in The Land, and Thomas is just insufferable and unbelieving in his situation. Assuming He is living through a dream sequence, he rejects the dream in a bid to not commit to a growing madness in his mind. But this existential exploration of action vs inaction lays out across the Land and the scope of this book making...

To follow and support us, click here: http://anovelreviewpodcast.com Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban sees a shift in the series from a form of fantasy detective fiction in the first two stories, to a story that explores the slow building pressure of a psychological thriller. Harry, now into his teen years is faced with a radically different scenario at Hogwarts. He is no longer seeking ou...