Innocents and Others review: silver screen saversDana Spiotta’s portrait of a friendship is also an affectionate homage to cinemaSat Feb 11 2017 - 06:00
The Traitor’s Niche by Ismail Kadare review: severed heads, living and deadNationhood, tyranny and memory are the themes of the Albanian writer’s 1978 novelSat Feb 04 2017 - 06:00
Ottessa Moshfegh, Homesick for Another World review: Smug superiority served coldLame boyfriends aside, the dominant motif in these pages is poverty and squalor, and a general sense of moral revulsion at how the American underclass liveSat Jan 21 2017 - 06:00
Rockadoon Shore review: student frolic with intriguing undertowRory Gleeson’s coming-of-age debut feels like a warm-up for more serious work later onSat Jan 14 2017 - 06:00
Autumn by Ali Smith review: Brexit remix in the summer of hateIts topicality and patchwork form make a story about friendship feel urgently contemporarySat Nov 05 2016 - 05:00
Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine review: Terse and trying talesDiane Williams’s grimly brief stories are defiantly avante garde – and just a bit flatSat Nov 05 2016 - 05:00
Keeping On Keeping On review: Just try to shut him upAlan Bennett may be ‘essentially harmless’ to the elite, but his diaries rarely hold backSat Oct 29 2016 - 05:00
Inch Levels review: an unsettling and moral novelNeil Hegarty explores family dynamics and psychological legacy through a dying manSat Sept 10 2016 - 05:00
Negroland by Margo Jefferson review: growing up in Chicago’s ‘Negro’ eliteA black American recalls her upbringing amid the racial politics of culture and classSat Aug 20 2016 - 04:01
Release the Bats: Writing Your Way Out of It by DBC Pierre review – a lively guideThe 2003 Booker prize winner’s advice for writers is an enjoyable read but useful only if you’re attempting a certain kind of novelSat Jul 02 2016 - 01:41
Bodies of Water by VH Leslie review: a pallid, lazy ghost storyWhat is most striking about the novel is the disparity between the gravity of its allusions and its insipid, cliche-ridden narrationSat May 21 2016 - 02:05
This is the Ritual, by Rob Doyle: Brooding narratives of tentative iconoclasmDoyle’s storytelling is compelling, engaging, suffused with wit, honesty and emotional intelligence but it is still only a tentative foray. There is more, and better, to comeSat Jan 23 2016 - 01:09
Alive, Alive Oh! And Other Things That Matter, by Diana Athill: life lived to fullA series of vignettes ranging from childhood reminiscences to reflections on history, culminating in the 98-year-old author’s meditation on old age and the end of lifeSat Jan 09 2016 - 01:18
