Reviewed by Lucy Unwin Arundhati Roy’s Booker Prize winning debut The God Of Small Things was a sensuous, atmospheric, emotionally powerful book. India’s caste system was the motivator of the plot, and…
Reviewed by Harriet It’s every parent’s nightmare – one minute your child is there, next minute they’re gone. My own three-year-old daughter once wandered off in a busy market in…
Reviewed by Karen Langley American author Joyce Carol Oates is an astonishingly prolific writer: since the publication of her first book in 1963, she’s produced over 40 novels as well…
Review by Annabel This novel was my first encounter with Levy and I’ll confess, I found Hot Milk a difficult book to read. Levy has an oblique style that doesn’t yield its…
Review by Annabel One thing you can say about Kunzru’s previous novels – they will always have interesting themes that connect with the zeitgeist of the day from computer viruses…
Reviewed by Ali First published in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale seemed to speak to the generation coming to political awareness in that decade. Back then it could be read as…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Mitch Prinstein is an expert on popularity, but he uses lots of other people’s experiments as well as his own to back up his claims in…
Reviewed by Karen Langley Australian-born Christina Stead led a lively and picaresque life, spending parts of her time in the USA, France, Spain and the UK. Therefore, it’s safe to…
Translated by Thomas Teal Reviewed by Kate Gardner This penultimate collection of Finnish literary giant Jansson’s short stories has taken 26 years to be published in an English translation, but…
By Isobel Blackthorn Could there ever be enough literary prizes to satisfy the ambition of authors? For a very small literary market, Australia has a healthy complement, from the most…
Interview by Lucy Unwin We caught up with Sally at the Hay Festival 2017 where she told us: The foursome at the centre of the novel: Frances and Bobbi, the…
Reviewed by Lucy Unwin That the Bechdel Test for movies even exists has to be one of the more depressing minor details of modern times. If you’ve never come across…
Review by David Hebblethwaite Jon McGregor is a writer whose work deserves the fullest attention, which it will repay with some extraordinary reading experiences. He has an unerring ability to…
Interview by Annabel Annabel: I loved reading The Lie of the Land, and it had me giggling all the way through. Before I discuss some of the themes, I’d like to ask…
Reviewed by Annabel Quentin and Lottie want to divorce – but they can’t afford to. Well, can’t afford to sell their big London house and buy two smaller ones that…
Review by Laura Marriott Like many people I first came to know Tony Robinson through his role as Baldrick on Blackadder, before following him as he helmed Time Team. This…
Translated by Deborah Smith Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Look at all these people, sobbing over a death that happened three months ago, starving because they haven’t been able to draw…
Translated by Martina Devis & Malcolm Imrie Reviewed by Terence Jagger Monsieur Rufin is an impressive man, having founded Médecins sans Frontières, been an ambassador for France in Senegal, written…
Review by Annabel I’m delighted that the vogue for republishing the best thrillers from the 1960s onwards as exemplified by the books of Lionel Davidson (see here and here!) has…
Review by Hayley Anderton I first heard of Meike Ziervogel in the early days of her publishing house, Peirene Press, when I was offered a book to review. It hooked…
Translated by Linda Coverdale Reviewed by Harriet What was he doing there? A hundred times, in the middle of an investigation, he’d had the same feeling of helplessness or, rather,…
Translated by Alison Anderson Review by Terence Jagger The first character we meet is Maud, a young and naive Frenchwoman who is apparently badly injured, being driven by Marc through…
Review by Harriet The deaths of poets matter to us because they become a lens through which to look at the poems. So say the authors, both poets themselves, in…
Review by Harriet ‘Aphra Behn was a woman who wore masks’. So says Janet Todd at the beginning of this monumental, newly revised biography of Behn, who was a prolific…
