Book news, reviews and recommendations
This is my second review of a Scandi book this year and we’re only half-way through January. Both prove that it’s not all crime and angst in the chilly north. Jonas Karlsson’s short fable manages to be wacky, funny and thought-provoking all within a very few pages. Set in an open plan Swedish office, it’s […]
The Room by Jonas Karlsson (transl. Neil Smith): Kafka in the office Read More »
I’m not sure how helpful most readers find comparisons to other authors in publishers’ blurbs. For me, they can often be irksome and some times downright inappropriate. Philip Teir’s debut comes with all sorts of comparisons – from Jonathan Franzen to John Updike; Julian Barnes to Alan Hollinghurst. It turns out to be an excellent
February is my least favourite month: dank, drizzly weather here in the UK; little or no colour in the garden; countryside bedraggled and grubby looking – ugh, I hate it. It’s not always a sparkling month in the publishing schedules, either, although given all the above there’s plenty of encouragement to stay indoors reading. This
Books to Look Out For in February 2015 Read More »
Last year in Madrid I spotted a copy of Leaving the Atocha Station in a bookshop only metres from said station and thought about buying it then got distracted. Much talked about on publication, it’s Ben Lerner’s first novel – 10:04 is his second and it’s narrated by a writer whose first novel was much
10:04 by Ben Lerner: ‘Neither fiction nor nonfiction, but a flickering between them’ Read More »
Carnaby Street, mini-skirts, coffee bars and rock n’ roll: these are some of the things that make up the glossy vibrant Swinging Sixties we see portrayed on our TV screens in nostalgic documentaries. Flip that coin and you’ll find something nasty – racism and fascism alive and kicking almost twenty years after the Second World
Ridley Road by Jo Bloom: Fascism and anti-fascism in the ‘60s East End Read More »
When Will Boast shows a writer friend a fictionalised version of his family history she tells him ‘If you put all that in, no one will believe it’. Perhaps she might have said no one would want to believe it for much of his story is too sad, striking too close to home. By the
Epilogue by Will Boast: You wouldn’t make it up Read More »
This is the third of the three novels that I agreed to look at for an author, and of the three, it’s the one I would have been least likely to come across if Tamim Sadikali hadn’t sent me a copy. It’s from a publisher I’d never head of before – Hansib – although when
Dear Infidel by Tamim Sadikali: A deeply unsettling read Read More »
Given my ‘bah humbug’ attitude to Christmas it may seem a bit odd to fly off to the country which pretty well invented many of the UK’s most beloved festive bits and bobs: markets, fairy-lit trees and mulled wine come to mind. Hamburg might seem an even stranger choice – hardly top of most tourists’
Five Days in Hamburg and a few books Read More »
Surprisingly, all but one of the paperbacks that catch my eye this January have already been reviewed here which gives my credit card a welcome break, if nothing else. I’ll start with one of my books of 2014: Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist, much-hyped before, during and after its publication but deservedly so. Set in seventeenth-century
Paperbacks to Look Out for in January 2015 Read More »
I’ve read some sad books this year – I Refuse and Academy Street spring to mind – but none as sad as Suzanne McCourt’s The Lost Child set in small town Australia. At one stage I thought I might have to give it up but her writing is so impressive that I decided to tough
The Lost Child by Suzanne McCourt: Best read when cheerful Read More »
After Jenny Erpenbeck’s intricately constructed The End of Days I felt the need for some good old-fashioned straightforward storytelling and Celeste Ng’s debut seemed to fit the bill. Set in 1977, it’s the story of a family whose oldest daughter disappears one night. A few days later the police arrive with the awful news that
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: A perfectly named debut Read More »