Hotels like Houses

by Sophie Hannah

This collection provides a range of romantic ironies. Sophie Hannah's poems move beyond satire to the heart of modern matter: loves, lusts, losses, and the foibles of contemporary life.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1997

About the author

Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological crime fiction, published in 27 countries. In 2013, her latest novel, The Carrier, won the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards. Two of Sophie’s crime novels, The Point of Rescue and The Other Half Lives, have been adapted for television and appeared on ITV1 under the series title Case Sensitive in 2011 and 2012. In 2004, Sophie won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her suspense story The Octopus Nest, which is now published in her first collection of short stories, The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets.

Sophie has also published five collections of poetry. Her fifth, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T S Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is forty-one and lives with her husband and children in Cambridge, where she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. She is currently working on a new challenge for the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.

Reviews

[Tim Love · Rating 2 out of 5]

When Wendy Cope does the same kind of stuff she does it better, and does other things besides. Connie Bensley ("Choosing to be a Swan") is funnier. Even newcomers like Eleanor Brown ("Maiden Speech") are better in places. So why, even allowing for the usual hype, does Poetry Review call Hannah "A GENIUS"? Why does the Acknowledgements page mention the best magazines in the country? Nothing's especially quotable or memorable. That said, nothing's awful either, and if you like a variety of rhyming schemes (I counted over 15), then this is the book for you.

Poems like To Whom it May Concern at the Whalley Range Driving Test Centre are presumably meant to be light and funny, but the humour's too slight. Fair to Say is typical in that it shows the struggles she sometimes has with rhyme: 25 of the 27 lines end with a monosyllable word, and the padding is, at times, generous. The image in the first stanza (inevitably) becomes an analogy for a relationship. A wider range of subject matter, a smaller selection of poems and some sharper lines would all have helped to improve the book.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this for my husband for Fathers Day after going to a poetry reading by Sophie Hannah in Cambridge. She was great fun and an engaging reader. The poems are lively and remind me of the tail end of the new feminist poetry period in the 80s and 90s. Having said that don' t be put off. They are focused on relationships and thoughtful/ fun rather than aggressive.
Just showed my daughter her 20 month old signature! Lol :) Next stage is to get her to read them.
Reminded about this by Seeing Hannah's books on the best seller lists in a motorway service station. Glad to see she's had so much success. Must check out more of her work.

[Matt Hunt · Rating 2 out of 5]

there were a couple of pieces I really likes. Person Specification in particular. But on the whole I couldn't really get on with it. The rhyming seems just slightly too forced and made it difficult for me to get the rhythm of the work or to stay with the images.
Try Wendy Cope or Carol Ann Duffy instead.