Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos plots the course of a relationship as the end of East Germany looms. Hans is the kind of male character from a Milan Kundera novel: a married man who intellectualises why he can’t keep his cock in his pocket, whose wife cuts to th…
Lynne Tillman’s latest chronicles a series of one night stands and love affairs across New York, Amsterdam, London and other places in the 1960s. ‘Lost and disorientated women aimlessly drifting through life’ is a genre that makes up a decent chunk of my …
Service has three narrators: Daniel is a celebrity chef who has recently been accused of sexual assault. Julie is his wife and the mother of his two sons. Hannah is a woman who waitressed at Daniel’s restaurant while she was at university. She’s not one o…
It is no surprise that this, Laura Fish's third novel, was the ‘S I Leeds Reader's Choice Winner’ in 2022. It opens with the death of Koliwe's father, a tragedy which leads to her decision to travel to his birthplace in Eswatini, the former Kingdom of Swa…
Neoliberalism. It’s an ideology that has been pursued by just about every major party in the west – some, admittedly, with more zeal than others – since the late 1970s. And yet you never hear politicians describe themselves as staunch neoliberals: hence: …
William Boyd can turn his hand to any genre. He’s been responsible for some brilliant, Evelyn Waugh-like farces including ‘A Good Man in Africa’ and ‘Stars and Bars’. He’s also written romantic, foreign adventures such as ‘The Blue Afternoon’, and several…
The success of Rita Bullwinkel’s ‘Headshot’, released earlier this year, has promoted a quick reprint of ‘Belly Up’, her earlier short story collection. ‘Headshot’, which details the exploits of a bunch of young women who gather together to battle it out …
“I want to read about the trouble a person might have with making things. About what might stop a person making things, making art, I mean. Like money”. A request which leads Nicola Long to the letters of Donna Dreeman, a potter who died in the eighties, …
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson is one of the best books I have ever read, and I devoured it in no time. This utterly beautiful yet heartbreaking novel follows two young Black artists in London, both of whom remain unnamed. The story delves into the mal…
When I think of Billy Childish I also think of English outsiders like Lawrence from Felt, Denim etc, and David and Rachel from Comet Gain. People who’ve used the dole and housing benefits as a basis from which to build ‘careers’ as music makers no matter …
Jack is a 53-year-old copper working the Newcastle beat. He’s not exactly an old school dinosaur, but no one would ever accuse of him of being woke. When Jack is involved in a serious car crash, he’s sent for a routine head scan and the doctor breaks the …
Benjamin Myers’ last novel ‘Cuddy’ was a bold, mystical, millennium-hopping story about St. Cuthbert and the north – its people and its landscape – which cast one eye towards the heavens. ‘Rare Singles’ is an altogether more straightforward tale, but this…
The debut novel from Jenna Clake sees an unnamed 26-year-old woman living alone in a block of flats. She’s broken up with her relatively long-term boyfriend and over the course of the novel we learn that their relationship was a particularly abusive one. …
Seahurst, the place her father died, the house next to the ruins on the edge of a collapsing cliff was once Evie's sanctuary. As she escapes her abusive partner with her son, she hopes it will be again. But Seahurst has secrets waiting to be uncovered. S.…
Rachel Cattle’s UH HUH HER is a gripping and beautifully written trip through the scenes from an artist’s life, bouncing back and forth in time from the unnamed narrator’s early life to the present day. There’s punk and the Boy with the Blond Hair, The La…
Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan is about family and community and how the monstrosities of the Sri Lankan civil war both fracture old ties and creates new ones in ways unimaginable before the conflict. The novel’s protagonist, Shashi, a Tamil, is…
Jennifer Belle takes you back to the summer of 1982, as fourteen-year-old Swanna is the only kid waiting to be picked up from camp. When her mother eventually arrives, she’s with a new boyfriend and they’re headed to an artist colony instead of home to Ne…
It’s 1990 and the body of a three-year-old girl has been found in a London housing estate. Immediately, the finger is pointed at the Greens, an Irish family that has never belonged since immigrating ten years before. While the family lives out their worst…
The excellent debut novel from August Thompson begins with a death and an arresting sentence: “It took three car crashes to kill Jake.” Alongside Jake for the first two car crashes was Theron, and Theron is in Fort Worth in Texas for Jake’s funeral. We le…
At the turn of the century, the not-yet-celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain wrote what would become one of the defining memoirs about cooking and kitchen life. Combining a cheeky sense of humour with lip-smacking food writing, the book became ground zero for …
I don’t know enough about Miranda July’s life to say how autobiographical ‘All Fours’ is, but I think it’s fair to say that the unnamed narrator of ‘All Fours’ has plenty in common with July, as, just like July, she has several fingers in several arty pie…
Librarian Martha thought she was destined to remain single all her life (she had a “love curse” put on her when she was at school), but when she meets Alan the pair hit it off and get married. She’s not exactly head-over-heels, but Alan is solid; a good c…
In a recent interview for The Big Issue Paul Weller said that, “This country is run by idiots and fools”, and if you thought that was a typical Weller exaggeration reading Rory Stewart’s Politics On the Edge proves his point on every single page. Apparent…
Rose Boyt’s memoir, Naked Portrait, is the story of childhood trauma, her father, her mum and, to my mind, how a couple of challenging years in Boyt’s early thirties proved to be a kind of hinge to her future life. Based on diary entries she looks back an…
The Man in all ‘his’ various incarnations: government, council, police force, et al, doesn’t like freedom. Particularly the freedom to dance, have fun and cross pollinate with other groups of people who like doing the same. Freedom can lead to all kinds o…
Pig Tales follows an unnamed narrator who becomes employed as a sex worker. A dazzling beauty, she’s both desired by men and envied by women – until she starts to transform into a pig. As a woman, the narrator’s ability to earn a living is completely reli…
This novel doesn’t have chapters, it has “fragments” – 100 of them – which may give you some idea of the kind of book it is: impressionistic and, yes, fragmentary. The setting is modern day Paris, and Clara is doing research for a biography she’s writing …
Rosie Andrews grabbed herself a ‘Bestseller’ rosette for her debut novel ‘The Leviathan’, a dark and atmospheric 17th century mystery where ancient myths rubbed up against enlightened thinking. ‘The Puzzle Wood’ sees her shifting focus to the mid-1800s an…
This superb selection of short stories from Sara Maitland all feel fresh. They span a whole host of eras and genres, running the gamut from women fighting for the vote to Moss Witches protecting their lands. The connection and enjoyment I found in the sto…
In her latest essay slash memoir slash fanfiction, Gevinson’s subject is someone who focusses on youth and nostalgia: Taylor Swift. (She’s a singer by all accounts…) Whether you’re sick of hearing about her or not, Swift is the perfect case study for this…
The title of this fine novel is taken from a speech purportedly given by Tariq ibn Ziyad, an Umayyad commander who initiated the conquest of what is now present day Spain back in the 8th century. He burned his men’s ships in the harbour, so they couldn’t …
One would often see nerds, geeks, or in modern parlance, NPCs (non-playable characters), train-spotting or lurking around the transport or local history sections of a Waterstones. Maybe very occasionally see them on an early evening television programme f…
“Amber traced the silver lines across her groin, which marked her first severing from her daughter, the first sign of their physical distance.” Amber's faith has brought her to a new marriage and a small town - a home where she and her children can flouri…
Sometimes parents make choices that seem to make sense when looked at in one way, but in another make no sense at all. Noreen Masud’s father, for instance, locks up his family so the noise and ‘chaos’ of Lahore doesn’t damage or spoil them, without realis…
The milieu of Elizabeth O’Connor’s debut novel put me in mind of the one evoked by director Michael Powell in his 1937 film ‘The Edge of the World’. Powell’s film concerned itself with the depopulation of the Scottish archipelago of St Kilda as the younge…
1984. Reagan’s America. During a long hot summer 13-year-old Mel spends most of her time mooching around Swaffham, a small town in Massachusetts, with best friend Jules. They experiment with alcohol and weed, and share whatever second-hand knowledge they …
Guy Ware’s fifth novel takes place on an unnamed island, and brings together a cast of characters as bizarre as the belief that the Island was, in fact, created during the 1980s in what they call “The Great Simulation”. Politicians, clerics, and would-be …
In the world of ‘Salt Slow’, the debut short story collection from Julia Armfield, a young girl transforms into a praying mantis, a PhD student creates perfect men from stray body parts, and a teenager gains a wolf as a stepsister. There really aren’t any…
Guardian Angels is an organisation that looks after buildings that are currently unoccupied. They do this by placing temporary residents inside the properties in order to deter squatters and vandals etc. Marlow is a woman on their books and after a happy …
As Catherine Taylor grows up a bogeyman stalks the streets of the North, in this particular case, though, the bogeyman is real. Prosaically, not a Jason or Michael Myers, but a lorry driver from Bradford with a hatred of women - and, in some ways, maybe n…
Let Me Tell You What I Mean is a compilation of twelve essays spanning from 1968 to 2000, offering a poignant exploration of events throughout Joan Didion's life. From insightful reflections on American politics to nuanced analyses of art and literature, …
I was intrigued by Killing Thatcher (The IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown) as I was intrigued by Hilary Mantel’s The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher and Anthony Cartwright’s How I Killed Margaret Thatcher. Killing Thatcher, however, isn’t…
It’s 2016. Ezra, a queer, Jewish person living in New York, is carrying out their last act of protest outside of Trump Tower. In their final moments, we’re given kaleidoscopic flashes of the 27 years between their birth and their ultimate decision to end …
Oftentimes, thrillers that pile up the bodies and revel in rug-pulling twists can leave me cold. They’re usually overly generic and populated by characters that, if they turned sideways, would be more or less invisible. Conversely, novels about, say sheep…
In Rita Bullwinkel’s suitably punchy debut novel, eight of the finest young female fighters in the US gather in Reno with one aim: to be crowned the next big thing in women’s boxing. Each chapter takes the form of a bout, and Bullwinkel describes the acti…
Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian-American writer who has previously won awards for his poetry. ‘Martyr!’ is his first novel and I wouldn’t be surprised if it too scooped a gong or two. It concerns Cyrus Shams, a late 20s poet and “straight-passing” homosexual, w…
Blueberries is a collection of ‘essays concerning understanding’ that explores multiple styles from academic to short story to memoir. It kicks off with Yellow City, which tells the story of a woman who revisits Lisbon a decade after a serious sexual assa…
InkyLab Publishing are an independent publishing company based in Newcastle and the driving force behind all sort of interesting books including their latest ‘A Day in the Life’. Established in 2019, Inky Lab has provided a vital service for writers in th…
I nearly didn’t read Wifedom because a critic and writer I respect, who shall remain nameless, gave it a right old lashing. Which, having hugely enjoyed this book, casts massive doubts on her critical faculties. Sure, Wifedom (Mrs Orwell’s invisible life)…
Truman Capote’s ‘swans’ were a group of very rich and privileged women he became friends with and then proceeded to ‘betray’ in the three stories that were collected in his controversial unfinished novel, Answered Prayers. Attempting to be an expose of th…
I loved this biography of Richard Deakin which is surprising as it ticked a lot of the boxes that ‘trigger’ irritation, annoyance and a perfectly natural inclination to chuck said biography across the room. Went to Oxbridge? Tick. Likes wild swimming? Tic…
Autocrats and dictators always have a way with words and phrases that obscure and sanitise the indefensible and Mao was no different. The Great Leap Forward resulted in an estimated forty-nine million deaths (the famine resulting from it referred to in Ch…
A calculating, whip-smart 60-year-old woman named Grace meets an easily influenced young woman named Janice in Holloway Prison. Once they’re out, they cook up a plan to trick and rob old women by drugging them with sleeping pills and taking anything valua…
The only named woman in Andrew McMillan’s fine debut novel is Margaret Thatcher, and she looms large over the narrative due to her role in the 1984/85 miners’ strike. The setting is South Yorkshire and the tale flits back and forth across three generation…
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