nomadreader

The backstory: How to Be Both  is on the 2014 Booker Prize short list. Update: It also won the 2015 Baileys Prize  and was shortlisted for the 2015 Folio Prize . The basics: How to Be Both  is told in two parts, one from the point-of-view of George, a 16-year-old Cambridge (England) girl in current time, and the other from the spirit of Francesco del Cossa, a 15th century Italian artist. Which narrative you read first depends on the book; half the copies were printed with George's narrative first. My thoughts: A few years ago, I read my first Ali Smith novel, There But For The  ( my review ), when it was longlisted for the Orange Prize . I didn't love it, but I was impressed with Smith and her ideas, so I was eager to see what she would do next. Before starting this book, I did something I rarely do: I looked at a professional review (I usually think reviews give too much away.) I'm so glad I knew there are two orders in which to read this novel before I st...

The backstory:   A Lesson in Secrets  is the eighth Maisie Dobbs mystery novel. Here are links to my reviews of the first seven books:  Maisie Dobbs ,  Birds of a Feather ,  Pardonable Lies ,  Messenger of Truth ,  An Incomplete Revenge ,   Among the Mad , and The Mapping of Love and Death . (There may be some minor spoilers from earlier novels in this review.) The basics: The British Secret Service recruits Maisie to work semi-undercover as a professor of philosophy at a small college in Cambridge. Maisie is qualified, but she must apply and actually get the job. Her goal: see if anything is amiss at this college, whose founder and president wrote a pacifist children's book during the war that was suppressed. When he soon ends up murdered, Maisie has trouble distinguishing between her duties as a mole and her driving need to solve the crime. My thoughts:  After The Mapping of Love and Death , which was my favorite of the Maisie Do...