Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa Reviewed by Harriet As a couple, they had spotted me like one of those distant shapes on the ocean that can’t be ignored and had…
Paris Vagabond by Jean-Paul Clébert
Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith Reviewed by Karen Langley There’s a current literary trend of reissuing lost classics, and one of the most reliable imprints which is at the vanguard is…
Ladivine by Marie Ndiaye
Translated from French by Jordan Stump Reviewed by Kate Gardner Marie Ndiaye’s latest book could be described as a surrealist family saga, perhaps even magic realist, if I’m allowed to…
Sergio Y. by Alexandre Vidal Porto
Translated by Alex Ladd Reviewed by Victoria I really love shrink lit. There’s something about the lucid and detailed focus on the interaction between patient and psychotherapist that is somehow…
The Abundance by Annie Dillard
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Annie Dillard is one of those uncategorisable writers who poke fingers into all sorts of genres. Like Adam Gopnik, Rebecca Solnit, and Geoff Dyer (who provides…
Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty
Reviewed by Simon Delta Wedding might win the award for the most beautiful book I’ve read for this issue of Shiny New Books – as an object, I mean, though the…
Journeyman by Marc Bojanowski
Reviewed by Susan Osborne There’s something very attractive about a state of the nation novel. It offers the chance to examine a snapshot of a country, taking in the many…
The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
Reviewed by Annabel This is only Alain de Botton’s second novel in a writing career of well over over twenty years. He began with a stylish novel – Essays in Love in…
The Vanishing Futurist by Charlotte Hobson
Reviewed by Kate Gardner In many ways this is a conventional take on historical fiction: old lady recounts her youth for her daughter to read after she dies. But the…
The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood
Reviewed by Kim Forrester Australian writer Charlotte Wood has five novels to her name, but she’s never been published in the UK — until now. Fresh from winning the Indie…
The Sun King Conspiracy by Yves Jégo & Denis Lépée
Translated by Sue Dyson Reviewed by Helen Skinner This fascinating and complex historical thriller is set in 1661 at the court of France’s Sun King, Louis XIV. As the novel…
Hystopia by David Means
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth In an interview with The Guardian, short story writer turned novelist David Means said: ‘History is delusional. Not just an illusion, it’s a delusion.’ Means’s debut novel, Hystopia,…
My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal
Reviewed by Alice Farrant My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal is a powerful story that discusses race, mental illness, and family through the abandonment of a child. It’s the…
Pride And Pudding by Regula Ysewijn
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Sometimes I wonder if my cookbook habit is getting out of control, and in my darkest moments I’ll even question how many of them a person…
More Was Lost by Eleanor Perényi
Reviewed by Simon If you’re anything like me, you might be unfamiliar with the political dynamics of Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the years leading up to the Second World War….
Questions for Peggy Frew about Hope Farm
Interview by Annabel Annabel: Firstly, congratulations on Hope Farm being shortlisted for the 2016 Stella Prize. This young literary prize is starting to get some notice in the UK and…
Hope Farm by Peggy Frew
Reviewed by Annabel Peggy Frew is an up and coming Australian author, and Hope Farm is her second novel. Alongside her writing, Peggy plays bass and sings in indie band Art of…
A Way Through the Wood by Nigel Balchin
Reviewed by Victoria Clive James called Nigel Balchin ‘the missing writer of the Forties’, a remark that notes the period in which he was highly acclaimed as a brilliant popular…
The Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor
Reviewed by Harriet The noise was the worst. Not the crackling of the flames, not the explosions and the clatter of falling buildings, not the shouting and the endless beating…
Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue
Translated by Natasha Wimmer Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite There’s some remarkable literature from Mexico being published in English translation at the moment. Writers such as Valeria Luiselli, Yuri Herrera, Paulette Jonguitud,…
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster The Sellout, Paul Beatty’s fourth novel, is such an outrageous racial satire that I kept asking myself how he got away with it. Not only did…
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
Translated by Helen Constantine, Editor Patrick Coleman Reviewed by Victoria If you’ve read a book by the 19th century French novelist, Gustave Flaubert, the chances are that it was Madame Bovary,…
The Lost Europeans by Emanuel Litvinoff
Reviewed by Simon Have you ever had the experience of starting a novel and, before you’ve got to the end of the second page, you are so bowled away by…
Himmler’s Cook by Franz-Olivier Giesbert
Translated by Anthea Bell Reviewed by Susan Osborne Perhaps it’s because many of us in the privileged developed world are living longer these days but there seems to be a…