Confused lives: It’s Getting Dark, by Peter Stamm, reviewed
The Swiss writer Peter Stamm’s inscrutable, alienated outsiders make bizarre choices to escape stifling mundanity. Their discontent suggests malaise, something…
Mind games: the blurred line between fact and fiction
Readers of Case Study unfamiliar with its author’s previous work might believe they have stumbled on a great psychotherapy scandal.…
Ice and snow and sea and sky: Lean Fall Stand, by Jon McGregor, reviewed
Jon McGregor has an extraordinary ability to articulate the unspoken through ethereal prose that observes ordinary lives from above without…
The shameful targeting of black police officers
I’m severely disabled, coffee-coloured, a migrant, a refugee and a woman. I was born to a Muslim family and I chose atheism…
Memory – and the stuff of dreams
Can you remember when you heard about 9/11? Chances are you’ll be flooded instantly with memories — not only where…
Looking for love: Ghosts, by Dolly Alderton
Of all the successful modern female writers documenting their search for love, none has been as endearing as Dolly Alderton.…
There’s no end to the wonders of the human body, says Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson has come a long way from being the funniest, most irreverent travel writer around. He’s still as amiable,…
Prince Charles’ irresponsible support for homeopathy
You might have thought that many of the world’s scientists and doctors had come to an unequivocal decision on homeopathy:…
The snake-oil salesmen who prey on schizophrenics
Schizophrenia is the psychiatric illness about which the most misconceptions abound. It’s not so much the ‘negative’ symptoms that cause…
Should adoptive parents be allowed to pick and choose their child?
The sorrow of involuntary childlessness is profound. The award-winning novelist Patrick Flanery and his husband knew this pain. Their craving…
Fiction for the #MeToo age: Victory, by James Lasdun, reviewed
James Lasdun is my favourite ‘should be famous’ writer, his work extraordinarily taut and compelling. His eye-boggling psychological thrillers are…
A disturbing psychological experiment involving secrecy, small boys and sharp knives
Gina Perry is the eminent psychologist who blew apart Stanley Milgram’s shocking revelations from his 1961 research. Milgram had caused…
From Louis XIV to the Shah of Iran: celebrities under the surgeon’s knife
Powerful memoirs by such eloquent doctors as Oliver Sacks, Atul Gawande, Henry Marsh, Gabriel Weston and Paul Kalanithi have whipped…
Stage fright
Patrick McGrath is a master of novels about post-traumatic fragmentation and dissolution, set amid gothic gloom. His childhood years spent…
A Feelgood fairy story
When I wrote for the NME as a schoolgirl in the 1980s, it was recognised that there were musicians who…
When two young Britons go camping in Yosemite their lives are changed for ever
The title of A.D. Miller’s follow-up to his Man Booker shortlisted debut Snowdrops refers not to lovers but to two…
