The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall
Reviewed by Victoria Sarah Hall’s reputation preceeded her into this, my first excursion into her writing (though it’s her fifth novel). Usually this is not a good thing; I have…
Reviewed by Victoria Sarah Hall’s reputation preceeded her into this, my first excursion into her writing (though it’s her fifth novel). Usually this is not a good thing; I have…
Reviewed by Victoria It is such a delightful surprise when a book you knew nothing about turns out to be a corker. I had never read any of Malcolm Pryce’s…
Reviewed by Victoria In 2013, Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, to put on the mantlepiece alongside her 2009 Man Booker International award, the National Book Critics…
Reviewed by Victoria Moses Sweetland is an ornery, tough-skinned, self-sufficient, stubborn old man and he’s also a remarkably tenacious and vital force of life in Michael Crummey’s Robinson Crusoe-esque novel….
Reviewed by Victoria If I ever get to meet Matt Haig, the first thing I would like to do, now I’ve read his book, is give him a hug. I’m…
Reviewed by Victoria Writing a family memoir can be a tricky business in these days of ever more sensitively judgemental readers. There’s a subset who disapproves of anything that smacks…
Reviewed by Victoria In this outstanding work of cinema history, Mark Harris follows the fortunes of five big name Hollywood directors who enlisted in the wake of Pearl Harbour to…
Interview by Victoria V: There’s been a spate of social media bullying cases in the news these past few years; was there any one particular event that sparked the idea…
Reviewed by Victoria Some of the most powerful stories about children and adolescents are the ones, like Lord of the Flies, that send chills down your spine. Make the children high…
Reviewed by Victoria I am a huge fan of shrink lit, the small genre of books that feature psychotherapy, because they almost invariably explore and unpack some of the most…
Reviewed by Victoria. Quentin Castle, lanky, short-sighted and newly-married, has recently been promoted to junior partner at his father’s literary agency. Everyone knows this is nepotism, especially his father’s other…
Reviewed by Victoria Readers may recognise Phillip Lopate’s name from the anthologies of American essay writing for which he is the editor, though in fact he is a prolific essay…
Reviewed by Victoria If, like me, you can dimly remember the furore that arose when Mikhail Baryshnikov defected to the United States, and if, like me, you thought he was…
Reviewed by Victoria This is a debut novel from a short story writer, and there’s a way in which you can sense the palimpsest of shorter fiction underneath the sweep…
Paperback review by Victoria Alice McDermott is one of those writers who make you wonder how on earth they do it. Every sentence in her deceptively simple novel, Someone, is written with…
An Interview with Notting Hill Editions Written by Victoria Best If you’ve ever seen a book by Notting Hill Editions, you’re not likely to forget it. Elegant hardbacks with embossed…
Written by Victoria Best My abiding memory of Alan Cumming is from the Bond movie, Goldeneye, in which he plays his character of Machiavellian computer programmer like a cheeky and irritating…
Written by Victoria It feels like it’s been quite a while since I last read an engaging portrait of domestic drama from a male writer. Philip Teir’s debut novel has…
Written by Victoria Rose Tremain is one of those talented writers in whose hands you instantly feel safe. Here, the reader understands, there will be acts of storytelling that take…
Written by Victoria So what’s a medieval historian to do with a figure like Chaucer? A man who still exerts a fascination over his audience down through the centuries, and…
Written by Victoria It’s the summer of 1940 and Lisbon in Portugal is bursting at the seams with people desperate to leave mainland Europe and the march of the Nazis….
Review by Victoria I first read Peter Carey in 1988, when Oscar and Lucinda won the Booker Prize. I wasn’t sure I could say I liked him exactly, but I knew I…
Written by Victoria After a long and busy life at the forefront of modern architecture, Otto Laird at 78 is more than happy to live peacefully in Switzerland with his…
Written by Victoria One of the things fiction does best is bring to life otherwise abstract debates on political or philosophical matters. There’s nothing like a story for showing us…