Letters to a Young Writer review: received wisdom neatly repackagedColum McCann’s advice to aspiring authors comes in short, easily digestible chapters, spanning everything from the technical aspects of writing to the business side of thingsSat May 20 2017 - 06:00
Notes From No Man’s Land review: the US’s self-delusion laid bareEula Biss’s essays examine contemporary America with rare lucidity and insightSat Apr 29 2017 - 06:00
Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Checking, Scrolling, Clicking and WatchingBook Review: Up to 40% of Americans have some sort of internet addcition, according to Adam AlterSat Mar 18 2017 - 06:00
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
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
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
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
