Emily Rhodes

Flaubert, snow, poverty, rhythm … the random musings of Anne Carson

17 February 2024 9:00 am

It is thrillingly difficult to keep one’s balance in Carson’s topsy-turvy world as she meditates on a wide range of subjects in poetry, pictures and prose

A bird’s-eye view: Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, reviewed

11 November 2023 9:00 am

Six astronauts at the International Space Station observe the ravages on Mother Earth, but remain hopeful that mankind will find another parent planet

A fable for our times

26 August 2023 9:00 am

When phylloxera destroys the vines on the Aoelian island of ‘S’, the inhabitants, forced to emigrate, blame the recently established prison colony

Adventures in Greeneland

12 August 2023 9:00 am

In skilfully told stories involving luck and changes of fortune, Osborne suggests that it’s not the hand you’re dealt that matters, but how you play it

Terrorists you might know or love: Brotherless Night, by V.V. Ganeshananthan, reviewed

22 July 2023 9:00 am

When a Sri Lankan medical student finds her brothers joining the Tamil Tigers, she is caught in a tangle of commitments to family, friends, homeland and vocation

A whale of a problem

8 July 2023 9:00 am

Restoring the painting ‘View of Scheveningen Sands’, an art conservationist uncovers a vital detail, leading her to regret the pact she once made with her husband

Tuscan chiaroscuro

17 June 2023 9:00 am

A trio of formidable British women are enjoying peaceful retirement in Italy – until their idyll is disrupted by a series of unforeseen events

Cooking the books: the rise of fake libraries

10 June 2023 9:00 am

The rise of fake libraries

Reading the rocks

15 April 2023 9:00 am

Louise Erdrich explores her Ojibwe heritage, learning to read ancient painted signs on rocks and making ritual offerings to the spirits

The tyranny of World Book Day

4 March 2023 9:00 am

The tyranny of World Book Day

Seeing and being seen: Wet Paint, by Chloë Ashby, reviewed

16 April 2022 9:00 am

In this arresting debut novel we follow 26-year-old Eve as she tries to come to terms with the loss of…

A modern Medea: Iron Curtain, by Vesna Goldsworthy, reviewed

5 February 2022 9:00 am

Vesna Goldsworthy’s finely wrought third novel explodes into life early on with a shocking scene in which Misha — the…

The stuff of everyday life: Real Estate, by Deborah Levy, reviewed

22 May 2021 9:00 am

Real Estate is the third and concluding volume of Deborah Levy’s ground-breaking ‘Living Autobiography’. Fans of Levy’s alluring, highly allusive…

The art of negotiation: Peace Talks, by Tim Finch, reviewed

9 May 2020 9:00 am

Early on in Tim Finch’s hypnotic novel Peace Talks, the narrator — the diplomat Edvard Behrends, who facilitates international peace…

Male violence pulses through Evie Wyld’s The Bass Rock

28 March 2020 9:00 am

‘It’s a woman’s thing, creation,’ says Sarah,a girl accused of witchcraft in 18th-century Scotland, in one of the three storylines…

Hell and high water: eco-anxiety dominates Jenny Offill’s latest novel

21 February 2020 10:00 pm

Lizzie, the narrator of Jenny Offill’s impressive third novel Weather, is ‘enmeshed’ with her brother, according to her psychologist-cum-meditation teacher.…

Kathleen Jamie’s luminous new essays brim with sense and sensibility

2 November 2019 9:00 am

There is a moment in one of the longer pieces in Surfacing, Kathleen Jamie’s luminous new collection of essays, when…

Jessie Burton’s The Confession is, frankly, a bit heavy-handed

5 October 2019 9:00 am

Jessie Burton is famous for her million-copy bestselling debut novel The Miniaturist, which she followed with The Muse. Now she’s…

Boer refugees were herded by the British into cattle trucks to be shunted into concentration camps at Bloemfontein in 1901. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

Brutish Brits: You Will Be Safe Here, by Damian Barr, reviewed

25 May 2019 9:00 am

Damian Barr explains the upsetting genesis of his impressive debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here, in his acknowledgements: This…

The cruise of a lifetime: Proleterka, by Fleur Jaeggy, reviewed

30 March 2019 9:00 am

Near the start of Fleur Jaeggy’s extraordinary novel Proleterka, the unnamed narrator reflects: ‘Children lose interest in their parents when…

Kristen Roupenian Credit: Urszula Soltys

Kristen Roupenian’s debut short stories fulfil all expectations

9 February 2019 9:00 am

Kristen Roupenian’s debut collection, You Know You Want This (Cape, £12.99), comes hotly anticipated. Her short story, ‘Cat Person’, went…

Caught between fascism and witchcraft: All Among the Barley, by Melissa Harrison, reviewed

25 August 2018 9:00 am

All Among the Barley, Melissa Harrison’s third ‘nature novel’, centres on Wych Farm in the autumn of 1933, where the…

Crudo, by Olivia Laing, reviewed

30 June 2018 9:00 am

Olivia Laing has been deservedly lauded for her thoughtful works of non-fiction To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring…

Love and loneliness prevail in the latest short stories

31 March 2018 9:00 am

Carmen Maria Machado’s debut collection Her Body & Other Parties (Serpent’s Tail, £12.99) takes a confident straddle across speculative fiction,…