Pushkin Press

Cover image for Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts

Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts: ‘Our time, perhaps, is shorter than we think’  

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I spotted Madeleine Watts’s Elegy, Southwest on social media thanks to a passionately enthusiastic post from its editor. The premise of a road novel set in the desert of the American Southwest, a landscape which I’ve visited several times and loved, made me put up my hand immediately. Watts’s novel follows Eloise and Lewis over […]

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Cover image for Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson

Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson: Much spattering in the kitchen

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Almost everything I review on here that’s not fiction is about travel, food or books which tells you something, I guess. Journalist and essayist Rebecca May Johnson’s Small Fires is about cooking and the kitchen – very appropriate given that I’ve recently undergone the upheaval of having our kitchen completely renovated after thirty years –

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Cover image for The Wonders by Elena Medel

The Wonders by Elena Medel (transl. Lizzie Davis and Thomas Bunstead): Precious independence

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Spanish poet Elena Medel’s first novel, The Wonders, was much acclaimed in her homeland, winning the prestigious Francisco Umbral Prize. Unsurprisingly, not being a poetry reader, I’d not heard of her but I’m always keen to read novels by poets and this one’s themes of feminism and class made it very appealing so I put

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Cover image for Grown Ups by Marie Aubert

Grown Ups by Marie Aubert (transl. Rosie Hedger): Life begins at forty

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Families and their dynamics offer such fertile ground for fiction. Most of us have a family in one form or another, and many of us are mystified by the differences between them, not least when we’re introduced to them by our partners. Marie Aubert’s darkly funny Grown Ups explores that most febrile of family dynamics,

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The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos (transl. Sam Taylor): Tailor made

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David Foekinos’ The Mystery of Henri Pick marks the beginning of a collaboration between publishers Pushkin Press and Channel 4’s Walter Presents, a streaming service which provides a good deal of my TV entertainment with its subtitled European drama. Even without that, I’d have been interested in this book whose blurb promised a novel about

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Wild Swims by Dorthe Nors (transl. Misha Hoekstra): Smart, astute and funny

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I first came across Dorthe Nors when I read her novella, Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2017. Her crisp, plain style coupled with an undercurrent of humour hit the spot for me. Wild Swims, exemplifies her rather idiosyncratic style, its apparently simple stories offering their readers much to think

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Cover image for Good Riddance by Elinor Lipman

Ten Small But Perfectly Formed Publishers Who Will Post Books to Your Home

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One of the very few silver linings to the coronavirus is a reported upsurge in book sales. We have booksellers, publishers, warehouse staff and posties to thank for getting hard copies to us, despite risks to themselves. You’re probably in the habit of browsing your local bookshop or maybe buying from online booksellers but small

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Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship

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Regular readers will know that I’m not one for words like ‘charming’ and ‘delightful’ – smacks too much of tweeness for me – but when I read the pitch for Isabel Vincent’s Dinner with Edward, they immediately popped into my head. Another one was ‘Christmas’, but that’s the old bookseller in me. Vincent’s book tells

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The Outermost House by Henry Beston: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod

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Henry Beston’s The Outermost House is something of an American nature classic, an account of the year he spent living on a beach near Eastham, Massachusetts not far from the very tip of Cape Cod in the 1920s. This new edition comes with charming illustrations by Pete Smith who also designed its beautiful jacket. An

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