Book cover of Mother's Boy

Book description

'Tender, evocative' TLS

'Richly engaging' Spectator

A Radio 4 Serial Fiction Book of the Week

'A characteristically tender novel about a young man growing up in the shadow of one war and the whispers of the next' Observer

'A wonderful novel about relationships, particularly between a mother and son. A…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Mother's Boy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is a fictional account mainly of the war-time life of the poet Charles Causley one of my favourite poets. Mr Gale
certainly had a novel approach even if he dropped some clangers about the Navy for example on ship toilets are
called 'heads' but it did not affect my enjoyment.

This is a beautiful, thoughtful treasure of a book that effortlessly taught me so much about life in the first half of 20th-century England.

One unsettling image that stays with me is the fact that when men took leave from the trenches of the First World War, they arrived home unwashed and lousy in the one uniform they had been issued with. I wouldn’t necessarily have picked up an LGBT-labeled book but the sex scenes are few and subtly written: a natural part of the gentle narrative. And how shocking to realise that up until as late as 1967 in…

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Book cover of The High House

The High House by James Stoddard,

The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.

The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.

Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…

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