May 12, 2022 Garden Physic by Sylvia Legris Review by Anna Hollingsworth Imagine all the life crawling in the undergrowth of a garden. In Garden Physic, Sylvia Legris digs it all up…
May 3, 2022 Ephemeron by Fiona Benson Review by Anna Hollingsworth On the cover of Fiona Benson’s Ephemeron, there is a butterfly trapped in a spider’s web. It’s a melancholy image,…
April 28, 2022 In the Margins by Elena Ferrante Translated by Ann Goldstein Review by Anna Hollingsworth There’s something fascinating about writers writing about, well, writing and reading. I care more about writers’…
February 22, 2022 little scratch by Rebecca Watson Review by Anna Hollingsworth When a novel comes with praise like ”daringly experimental” and “dazzlingly original”, my eyebrow tends to go up. Really? “Original”…
February 3, 2022 Longing and Other Stories by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki Translated by Anthony H Chambers and Paul McCarthy Review by Anna Hollingsworth In the UK, readers know their Murakamis and convenience store women. Jun’ichiro…
January 20, 2022 To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth We like to see history as going forward, progressing towards something better; it’s comforting to think that humankind is improving…
November 30, 2021 The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki Review by Anna Hollingsworth Imagine if a book began to narrate your story to you. What kind of voice would that be? Would it…
November 4, 2021 Oldladyvoice by Elisa Victoria Translated by Charlotte Whittle Review by Anna Hollingsworth When I pick up a book with a child narrator, it’s always with trepidation. I won’t…
October 14, 2021 Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka Review by Anna Hollingworth “Literary lion” is one descriptor attached to Wole Soyinka. For one, there’s a mane-like quality to his hair, a kind…
September 16, 2021 All the Names Given by Raymond Antrobus Review by Anna Hollingsworth ”your 2am text / lit / like a dog panting / on her screen / hot rattling engine / pile…
September 9, 2021 Paradise by Kae Tempest Review by Anna Hollingsworth Remember, this man is not our friend, he is our weapon. OK? So, we treat him like we treat any…
August 24, 2021 The Promise by Damon Galgut Review by Anna Hollingsworth Damon Galgut has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize twice. The Good Doctor delved into a young doctor’s angry melancholy…
August 17, 2021 Clothes… and other things that matter by Alexandra Shulman Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth The last item of clothing that I bought was a pair of pink dungarees from M&S children’s department nearly two…
August 12, 2021 The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth In The Bastard of Istanbul, a mysterious curse kills one family’s men before their time; 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in…
August 3, 2021 Three Rooms by Jo Hamya Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth At one point in Jo Hamya’s Three Rooms, the narrator discovers the communal kitchen in her Oxford house in a…
July 29, 2021 Heaven by Meiko Kawakami Translated by Sam Bett & David Boyd Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth My first encounter with Mieko Kawakami — as for most of us relying…
July 22, 2021 The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura Translated by Lucy North Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth There’s a particular skill to pulling off a character who is objectively reprehensible but nevertheless wins…
July 13, 2021 A Vertical Art – Oxford Lectures by Simon Armitage Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth According to a recent Ipsos MORI poll, 90 per cent of people said that they’d read a novel in the…
July 1, 2021 The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett Paperback review by Anna Hollingsworth At one point in The Vanishing Half, Kennedy, an overprivileged struggling actress, remembers a childhood shopping trip with her…
June 15, 2021 Things Remembered and Things Forgotten by Kyoko Nakajima Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori and Ian MacDonald Review by Anna Hollingsworth In the short story The Last Obon, Satsuki is mistaken for the…
June 4, 2021 Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Why country X? Why language Y? Anyone who has lived abroad or taken up a foreign language will be familiar…
April 20, 2021 The Immortals of Tehran by Ali Araghi Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Who hasn’t thought of poets as semi-mythical, Byron-like figures, with access to otherworldly visions? The truth is, most of the…
April 13, 2021 King of Rabbits by Karla Neblett Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Imagine a teenager who skips school, smokes, drinks and disappears from his girlfriend on a regular basis; a young man…
March 23, 2021 Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth After a year of daily Covid death reports, death really wasn’t something I wanted to hear any more of, let…
March 18, 2021 Bestiary by K-Ming Chang Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth “At a loss for words”, “in awe” and “confused but thrilled” are all phrases that I could use to describe…
