book reviews and features
Elena Ferrante: The Lying Life of Adults review - a universal Neapolitan adolescence
Sunday, 23 August 2020
The protagonist is a Neapolitan teenage girl; the settings move between the upper and lower parts, from the Vomero... Read more... |
Helen Macdonald: Vesper Flights review - nature lovingly described, nearly lost
Sunday, 23 August 2020
Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald’s first book following her incredibly successful memoir H is for Hawk in 2014, is an excellent collection of short pieces focused on the... Read more... |
Zalika Reid-Benta: Frying Plantain review - tales of growing up young, black and female in Toronto
Sunday, 16 August 2020
It is as unsurprising as it is vital that a spotlight has been thrown on writing by people of colour this year. It is unsurprising, too – looking at bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic... Read more... |
Nick Hayes: The Book of Trespass review – a leap over England's walls
Sunday, 16 August 2020
Since snobbery and deference have a big part to play in Nick Hayes’s exhilarating book, let’s start with the obligatory name-drop. I have lunched – twice, in different country piles, and most... Read more... |
Matt Haig: The Midnight Library review - an uplifting modern parable
Tuesday, 11 August 2020
TW: This article discusses suicide, suicidal ideation, antidepressants and self-harm We first meet Nora Seed, “nineteen years before she decides to die”, as she plays chess in the... Read more... |
Sharon Dolin: Hitchcock Blonde: A Cinematic Memoir review - a poet’s life filtered through Hitchcock’s lens
Sunday, 09 August 2020
Poet Sharon Dolin’s memoir Hitchcock Blonde ends (no spoilers) in the same way as... Read more... |
Alex Halberstadt: Young Heroes of the Soviet Union review - a familial history of the twentieth century
Saturday, 08 August 2020
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been a collective examination of its past, with Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Alexievich at the helm. Young Heroes of the Soviet Union... Read more... |
Hiromi Kawakami: People From My Neighbourhood review - deft and feather-light
Wednesday, 05 August 2020
Deft and funny prose, in a feather-light translation by Ted Goossen, is the signature of Hiromi Kawakami's latest collection People From My... Read more... |
Ali Smith: Summer review - a hopeful present, beautifully described
Sunday, 02 August 2020
It is no surprise, given her Cambridge Intellectual literary style, that Ali Smith’s Summer is multi-layered, referential, and filled with cameos from giants in the fields of art and... Read more... |
Mary South: You Will Never Be Forgotten review - canny tales of uncanny tech
Sunday, 02 August 2020
“Never Let Me Go meets free, two-day shipping.” This is how Mary South describes “Keith Prime”, the first story in her debut collection. Undoubtedly, Kazuo Ishiguro springs to mind in the... Read more... |
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