Several of my favourite reviewers proclaimed it (Kate W, BookerTalk and Jan Hicks, for example). The Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction judging panel announced it pretty vehemently too by awarding it first prize in 2016. Pretty much everyone is agreed that The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney is an outstanding novel. It takes the Irish Tourism version of Ireland and warps it mercilessly into something real and meaningful but also grubby and degenerate.
Queen Bee. Bee in your bonnet. Busy as a bee. The bees’ knees. The birds and the bees. Like bees to a honey pot. I only recently realised how many idioms, metaphors and symbols about bees we’ve adopted into the English language. This realisation came when quite by accident in the space of a fortnight, I read two bee-themed books back-to-back: The World Without Us by Mireille Juchau and The Bees by Laline Paull.
What do you call a book with a lovable central character, pointed commentary on capitalism, acerbic opinions on marriage and an omnipresent squirrel? You call it The Portable Veblen, and then you place it high on your ‘to read’ list.