February 23, 2017 First Love, by Gwendoline Riley Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén The New York Times Book Review runs a regular feature called ‘By the Book’, a kind of questionnaire for celebrated…
February 16, 2017 The Pledge, by Friedrich Dürrenmatt Translated by Joel Agee Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén In a mountainous Swiss canton not far from Zurich, a little girl’s body is found. She…
December 1, 2016 The Promised Land: An American Reading List Compiled by Eleanor Franzén So, the presidential election of 2016. As with the elections of 2012 and 2008, I will be telling my children…
April 14, 2016 Maresi by Mari Turtschaninoff Translated by Annie Prime Reviewed by Eleanor Franzen Maresi is thirteen or so. She lives in a fantastical realm on an island called Menos,…
January 27, 2016 Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén Are there ghosts at either end of life? It’s not uncommon, from time to time, to feel as though everything…
January 20, 2016 The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén Forgiveness is a word like tiger–there’s footage of it and verifiably it exists but few of us have seen it…
July 29, 2015 The Honours by Tim Clare Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén It’s rare for any book, let alone a book marketed as literary fiction for adults, to open with a thirteen-year-old…
July 14, 2015 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén Caitlin Doughty was a twenty-three-year-old with a degree in medieval history when she decided to become a mortician. The decision…
April 15, 2015 The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader Review by Eleanor Franzén Imagine: you’re a woman in England in 1255. With a little bit of flexibility, depending on your father’s annual income, you…
April 9, 2015 The Well by Catherine Chanter Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén Speculative fiction often works best when it takes one element of our everyday lives and tweaks it, showing us how…
