book reviews and features
Jonathan Franzen: Crossroads review - can goodness ever be its own reward?
Monday, 11 October 2021
It’s Christmas 1971 in New Prospect, a suburb of Chicago, and pastor Russ Hildebrandt has plans for... Read more... |
Sarah Hall: Burntcoat review - love after the end of the world
Saturday, 09 October 2021
Sarah Hall’s Burntcoat is one of those new books with the unsettling quality of describing or... Read more... |
First Person: Andrea Levy's husband recalls her path toward becoming a novelist
Thursday, 07 October 2021
The opening sentence of Andrea’s 2010 historical novel The Long Song ... Read more... |
Wole Soyinka: Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth review – sprawling satire of modern-day Nigeria
Thursday, 07 October 2021
Eight-years passed between the publication of Wole Soyinka’s debut novel, The Interpreters (1965), and his second, Season of Anomy (1973). A lot happened in... Read more... |
Extract: The Breaks by Julietta Singh
Wednesday, 06 October 2021
How do we mother “at the end of the world”? Among the ruins of late capitalism, climate catastrophe, and entrenched white state violence? Julietta Singh “admit[s]... Read more... |
Ananyo Bhattacharya: The Man from the Future review - the man, the maths, the brain
Tuesday, 05 October 2021
Suppose I’m a novelist plotting a panoramic narrative through world-shaping moments of the first half of the 20th century. I’ll need a character who can visit a bunch of key sites. Göttingen in... Read more... |
Ruby Tandoh: Cook As You Are review - truly a trailblazer
Monday, 04 October 2021
Ever since her appearance on The Great British Bake Off in 2013, Ruby Tandoh has been a breath of fresh air to the food... Read more... |
10 Questions for writer Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Anyone familiar with psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s bestseller The Body Keeps the Score (2014) will recognise the ghost of his title in Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s My Body Keeps... Read more... |
Barry Adamson: Up Above the City, Down Beneath the Stars review - the post-punk colossus spills his guts in a raw style
Friday, 24 September 2021
For those not familiar with the murkier corners of British rock music history, Barry Adamson was a significant... Read more... |
Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy, Sky Arts review – too much and not enough
Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Born in 1840, Thomas Hardy lived a life of in-betweens. Modern yet traditional, the son of a builder who went on to become a famous... Read more... |
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