Book review – fiction
Samuel Beckett walks into a nail bar
It isn’t very often that a writer’s work is so striking that you can remember exactly where and when you…
Caught between a New Age rock and a theory junkie hard place
Siri Hustvedt’s new novel isn’t exactly an easy read — but the casual bookshop browser should be reassured that it’s…
The making of a novelist
Karl Ove Knausgaard was eight months old when his family moved to the island of Tromøya; he left it aged…
Madness and massacre in the jungle
In his new novel, Children of Paradise, Fred D’Aguiar, a British-Guyanese writer, returns to the Jonestown massacre, previously the subject…
Lost Kerouac that should have stayed lost
In 1944, when he was 22, Jack Kerouac lost a manuscript — in a taxi, as he thought, but probably…
The spy who came in from le Carré
The single most terrifying moment of my adult life occurred at 8.55 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday 5 August…
Sometimes one story is worth buying a whole book for. This is one of those times
Any new book by Lorrie Moore is a cause for rejoicing, but her first collection of short stories for 16…
What E.M. Forster didn't do
‘On the whole I think you should write biographies of those you admire and respect, and novels about human beings…
Fairytales of racism
A preview of Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird appeared in Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists issue in April last…
A family novel that pulls up the carpet before you're even in the door
I first mistook David Gilbert’s second novel for the sort of corduroy-sleeved family saga at which American writers excel. The…
First novels: When romance develops from an old photograph
The intensely lyrical Ghost Moth is set in Belfast in 1969, as the Troubles begin and when Katherine, housewife and…
Isabel Allende's Ripper doesn't grab you by the throat
Isabel Allende is not an author one usually associates with the thrillers about serial killers. Ripper, however, lives up to…
How miserable a marriage can be
In Never Mind Miss Fox, Olivia Glazebrook’s second novel, the revelation of a long buried secret releases a Pandora’s Box…
Fiction embroiled in the Profumo affair
Sex, spies, aristocrats and atom bombs — the Profumo affair is in the news again, thanks to the recent Andrew…
A creepy father, a lustful music teacher, four virgins — and one genuine love affair
London, 1794. It’s a different world from that portrayed by the Mrs Radcliffes and Anons of the time: rich young…
The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride - review
James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird is set in the mid 19th century, and is based on the real life…
Write what you know — especially if it's the second world war
Adam Foulds’s latest novel is less successful than its predecessor. In 2009 he reached the Booker shortlist with The Quickening…
A cruel novel about an India-born, world-famous, possibly real-life author
It is six years since Hanif Kureishi’s last novel Something to Tell You, a kaleidoscopic meditation on life and death…
Butcher's Crossing is not at all like Stoner — but it's just as superbly written
John Williams’s brilliant 1965 novel, Stoner, was republished last year by Vintage to just, if surprisingly widespread, acclaim and went…
An utterly charming, totally bonkers short novel
This utterly charming, totally bonkers short novel is something from another age. There are elements of A Handful of Dust…
The food of love
The Albek Duo are two astonishingly beautiful and talented Venetian musicians, Fiona and Ambra, who are identical twins. Hearing the…
The best children's books for Christmas
Animal stories for children are always tricky; as J.R.R. Tolkien observed in his essay on fairy stories, you can end…
Should Elizabeth Jane Howard have brought back the Cazalets?
Some years ago, a woman wrote to Dear Mary, at the back of this periodical, with an unusual problem: she…
Marriage Material, by Sathnam Sanghera - review
Sathnam Sanghera, in his family memoir The Boy with the Topknot, heaped much largely affectionate contempt and ridicule on his…
A Bright Moon for Fools, by Jasper Gibson - review
Harry Christmas, the central character of this bitterly funny debut novel, is a middle- aged, overweight alcoholic, with no friends…
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