July 2025

Cover image for The Place of Shells by Mai Ishizawa

The Place of Shells by Mai Ishizawa (Transl. Polly Barton): Trauma, grief and memory

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I’ve often mentioned the power of novellas on this blog, how in the right hands a few pages can convey much more than several hundred. Mai Ishizawa’s prize-winning debut, The Place of Shells, is a fine example of that for me. Set during the pandemic, it’s narrated by an unnamed academic from Tōhoku, whose coastline […]

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Cover image for Every One Still Here by Liadan Ní Chuinn

Every One Still Here by Liadan Ní Chuinn: A hard legacy

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Liadan Ní Chuinn’s debut collection comes garlanded with praise from a fistful of my favourite Irish writers including Wendy Erskine, Louise Kennedy and Lucy Caldwell, all heralding the arrival of a brilliant new talent. Every One Still Here comprises six stories, several quite brief, bookended by two lengthier pieces, all more than worthy of a

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My 2025 Booker Wish List

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Not my favourite prize but, for some reason, I can’t resist putting together a wish list for the Booker. To be eligible for this year’s prize all books must be published in the UK or Ireland between 1st October 2024 and 30th September 2025 and have been written in English. The judges usually stick to

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Cover image for The Watermark by Sam Mills

Paperbacks to Look Out For in August 2025: Part One

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August’s first batch of paperbacks begins a step or two outside my usual reading territory with Sam Mills’s The Watermark. Trapped in reclusive, once renowned author Augustus Fate’s work-in-progress, Jaime and Rachel are desperately trying to escape. To do so they move from Victorian Oxford to utopian Manchester landing themselves in a Russian winter before

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Cover image for The Wanderers by Meg Howery

A Snapshot of My Reading #6

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This month’s snapshot includes a novel about three astronauts preparing to travel to Mars, a short story collection from an Irish national literary treasure and a memoir about living alone and unattached well into old age. The novel I’m reading is Meg Howrey’s The Wanderers which I bought having loved They’re Going to Love You,

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Cover image for Drayton and Mackenzie

Drayton and Mackenzie by Alexander Starritt: The odd couple

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I’ve had several successes with Swift Press, notably Ben Shattuck’s The History of Sound, one of last year’s favourites, enough to keep an eye on their upcoming titles. Alexander Starritt’s Drayton and Mackenzie is very different. Opening in the early 2000s, it follows James Drayton and Roland Mackenzie whose chance meeting a couple of years

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