book reviews and features

Hilary Fannin: The Weight of Love review – unravelling knotty lives

Lauren Brown Sunday, 15 March 2020

The relationship between Joe, Robin and Ruth is far from your average love triangle. On the face of it, Robin loves Ruth, but after introducing her to his charismatic friend Joe – an artist and...

Rebecca Solnit: Recollections of My Non-Existence review - feminism, hope and the great American West

India Lewis Sunday, 08 March 2020

Rebecca Solnit’s autobiography, Recollections of My Non-Existence, is just as you might expect it to be – tangential, changeable, deeply feminist, and imbued with a sense of hope that...

Joanna Trollope: Mum & Dad review - redemption in Spain

Marina Vaizey Sunday, 08 March 2020

In common with her literary forebear, Joanna Trollope’s light hand refrains from the introverted angst so common in contemporary novels. Her immensely readable, witty renderings of English...

Christos Tsiolkas: Damascus review - the author of The Slap goes biblical

Markie Robson-Scott Sunday, 01 March 2020

To Christos Tsiolkas fans expecting something in the vein of his riveting bestsellers The Slap and Barracuda, the sixth novel by this Australian writer may come as a shock. We're...

Michael Nath: The Treatment review - 'deeds, and language, such as men do use'

Daniel Lewis Sunday, 01 March 2020

Great writing about – or set in – London has one thing in common: voice. It’s tuned into the city’s multiple...

Pete Paphides: Broken Greek review - top of the pop memoirs

Owen Richards Sunday, 01 March 2020

Think of the phrase “music ...

'You’re Jewish. With a name like Neumann, you have to be'

Ariana Neumann Monday, 24 February 2020

It was during my first week at Tufts University in America, when I was 17, that I was told by a stranger that I was...

Imagining Ireland, Barbican review - raising women's voices

Tim Cumming Monday, 24 February 2020

Recent politics surround the EU and nationhood, fantasies of Irish Sea bridges and trading...

Panikos Panayi: Migrant City review – the capital of the world

Boyd Tonkin Sunday, 23 February 2020

Some menus never change. In 1910, the Loyal British Waiters Society came into being, prompted by “xenophobic resentment at the dominance of foreigners in the restaurant trade”. London’s German...

Patricia Grace: Potiki review – a searching examination of human nature

Daniel Baksi Sunday, 23 February 2020

With the publication of her first work, Waiariki (1975), Patricia Grace became the author of the first ever collection of short stories by a Māori woman. In the four-and-a-half decades...