Book news, reviews and recommendations
I first spotted The Nix back in September last year on our riding the Central European railways holiday. It was sitting on a table in the English bookshop wing of Dussmann’s in Berlin, too chunky to justify including in the luggage that had to be hefted on and off the train. It looked right up […]
The Nix by Nathan Hill: Nothing ventured, nothing gained Read More »
Brad Watson’s novel comes with the knowledge that it’s based on the life of his great-aunt. The press release uses the word ‘inspired’ – a word which, I’m not entirely sure why, always makes me feel a little uncomfortable but in this case it seems entirely fitting. It’s the story of a woman born in
Miss Jane by Brad Watson: A life apart Read More »
It’s a both a joy and a worry when a second novel appears on the horizon following one quite so spectacularly good as Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life. Will it measure up or be a disappointment? What I hadn’t considered was that The Tobacconist would exceed my expectations. Very much darker than the A Whole
The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler (transl. Charlotte Collins): Dark days in Vienna Read More »
Back in 2012, I was sent a copy of Tim Winton’s Land’s Edge: A Coastal Memoir to read for a magazine I was working on. In it Winton writes about his passion for his country’s coastline, recalling childhood beach holidays then learning to surf as a lonely adolescent. I’d read and enjoyed Winton’s fiction but
Island Home by Tim Winton: A landscape memoir Read More »
Garth Greenwell’s debut is one of those novels about which there was a good deal of brouhaha long before it was published. As regular readers may have noticed that kind of thing tends to bring out the cynic in me but several of the names praising it to the skies are the kind of people
What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell: A tale of obsession and loneliness Read More »
When I first picked up Jim Powell’s new novel I was looking for a bit of light relief after finishing Olivia Laing’s excellent but often harrowing The Lonely City. I thought it might be a much slimmed down version of John Lanchester’s Capital or Justin Cartwright’s Other People’s Money, a post-financial crash novel, which to
Trading Futures by Jim Powell: The unravelling of a betting man Read More »
Lucia Berlin’s short story collection seem to be everywhere at the moment – her beautiful face shines out from broadsheet reviews, her book sits at the front of every bookshop I’ve been in recently – yet her work isn’t new. She died in 2004 having written intermittently over a long period stretching back to the
A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin: Saving some for later Read More »
I’d picked out Kim Zupan’s debut in my August paperback preview as a novel somewhat outside my usual literary territory but whose blurb made it sound worth investigating. It arrived jacketed a little like a Kent Haruf novel but what really sealed the deal was a puff from Mark Spragg whose An Unfinished Life and
The Ploughmen by Kim Zupan: A strange kind of friendship Read More »
I think this may be the first short story collection I’ve reviewed here. There’ve been a few linked sets – Judy Chicurel’s If I’d known You were Going to Be This Beautiful… springs to mind as does Sara Taylor’s The Shore – but Nickolas Butler’s is the only one I can think of filled with
Beneath the Bonfire by Nickolas Butler: A rare short stories review Read More »
There’s something very attractive about a slim novel which encapsulates the life of an ordinary person, someone whose life might well be judged narrow by those who stride across the world’s stage. Mary Costello’s very fine Academy Street springs to mind – I’m still trying to work out why it failed to appear on the
There’s always a moment of worry when you’re about to plunge into a book you’ve been looking forward to for some time. I remember Belinda McKeon’s Solace being surrounded by a great deal of pre-publication buzz, lots of well-known names singing its praises one of whom was Colm Tóibin which made me pay more attention
Tender by Belinda McKeon: Enduring love Read More »