Daniel Ellis reviews Matt Hill’s debut novel, The Folded Man, and finds much to savour in this dystopian tale of broken Britain. Continue Reading Novel: The Folded ...
One hesitates before calling A Tale for the Time Being a “novel of ideas”, which presupposes an imbalance toward themes over character, but it would be impossible to truly enjoy ...
Emma Cooper discusses the theme of transgression in one of her favourite books, MJ Hyland’s This Is How. Continue Reading Transgression and MJ Hyland’s ‘This Is How.’
...
Global warming. Now, there’s a phrase that can divide opinion, stir up controversy and shine a spotlight on apathy It’s nearly impossible to discuss without resorting to well-trodden rhetorical ground ...
“Austen was worldlier, more intellectual and more professional than she was portrayed…” Andre van Loon on a fresh look at a hidden Jane Austen, revealed through royalty cheques, hats, jewellery, ...
For our Mystery theme, Thomas Chadwick revisits a postmodern mystery in which the clues seem infinite and everything may mean everything … or nothing. First published in 1965, Thomas Pynchon’s ...
Kate Brown on a story of life for a mother and her two daughters after they escape from a religious cult. Down on her luck in her teens, Amaranth marries ...
If The Alchemist or The Kite Runner haven’t satisfied your curiosity on the spiritual development of wandering boys, Manisha Jolie Amin’s début novel should be your next read. Dancing to ...
Amber Dermon’s debut novel is about the dark side of American private school life. In it, the 80s come to stand for a loss of innocence and a pervasive, if ...
Sarah Dodds on the large and complex cast of characters in John Lanchester’s “Capital”, his story of London life told through the inhabitants of one street. Continue Reading ...
The next Hunger Games? Dystopian-fiction fan Emily Ding reviews Hugh Howey’s Wool and chats with the Florida-based author about his journey from self-publishing sensation to Big-Six author, and how it ...
From his author picture, Simon Rich looks pretty happy (even if his mum probably made him wear a tie). Who wouldn’t be: three books, five screenplays, he used to work ...
“I believe especially in being warm-hearted in love, in fucking with a warm heart. I believe if men could fuck with warm hearts, and the women take it warm-heartedly, everything ...
Anyone who thinks that the crime novel is a boring, repetitive genre would do well to read Belinda Bauer’s Rubbernecker. Set in the coma ward of a Cardiff hospital, Rubbernecker ...
‘Do you ever wonder where your life is going? You are not alone,’ reads the logline on the front page of Afsaneh Knight’s second novel. Fresh from my own existential ...
The details of Fanny and Stella’s story will completely destroy all your presumptions about Victorian attitudes to sexuality. They and their circle of friends regularly dressed in elaborate drag and ...
What are the borders between the urban and the rural? Between consumerism and conservationism? Between innocence and experience? These are some of the questions concerning Melissa Harrison’s debut novel Clay. ...
It’s London, 1850, and private detective Charles Maddox has just been given a new case. Sir Percy Shelley and his wife are being harassed by someone threatening to make public ...
The stories in this debut collection are familiar: a beautiful outcast taken in by seven dwarves, a girl with a long plait of hair, a woman going three times to ...
These formally inventive tales add up to an unflinching and visceral collection of stories which fragment and coalesce in surprising ways: Borges as written by Poppy Z Brite and Virginia ...
