Book news, reviews and recommendations
I have to confess that I didn’t get on with The Whole Wide Beauty, Emily Woof’s first novel. It was lauded to the skies by all and sundry but I gave it up so you may be surprised to hear that I was eager to give her second a try but its premise is particularly […]
The Lightning Tree by Emily Woof: Love, and the lack of it Read More »
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
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 »
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 »
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 »
I suspect The End of Days is a bit of a Marmite novel: you’ll either marvel at the way Jenny Erpenbeck deftly handles the constant shifts in narrative throughout this complex novel or you’ll despair of ever keeping track. Just as Jane Smiley sets out to tell the story of an American century through the
I’ve been meaning to read Thomas E. Kennedy’s Copenhagen Quartet for some time and was sent a copy of the final instalment recently. This might seem an odd place to start a series but I’d been assured that all the novels stand alone, as indeed this one did although I am left wondering if I’ve
Beneath the Neon Egg by Thomas E. Kennedy: A Scandi novel written by an American Read More »
The last of my ‘books of the year’ posts begins with one of my two September favourites, Steven Galloway’s The Confabulist which tells the story of the man who killed Houdini not once, but twice. Far from a straightforward reimagining of the Houdini story Galloway’s novel is a very clever bit of business which didn’t
Books of the Year 2014: Part 3 Read More »