Book Reviews

Li is at her most fascinating when exploring what talent really means

Exemplary Vietnam War-era road novel restores your faith in North American decency

Gift Grub & Me by Mario Rosenstock: entertaining, very funny and extremely honest

Although brilliant at showing the consequences of Trump administration actions, the book is limited in explaining the reasons behind them

Plus Winterveil by Ava Reid; Firstborn by MJ Hastings; and don’t read E Lockhart’s The Pools on public transport, whatever you do

Teenage ache captured beautifully in author’s most assured work

Reviews by NJ McGarrigle, Céire Sadlier and John Walshe

A work with two crowning glories: the inventive narrative architecture and the luxurious prose

A new collection of 62 letters shows the enormous emotional range of Irish emigrants’ experiences in the US – and complicates narratives of national loss and American opportunity

A hearing from which defence counsel is largely absent and where the voters must be the ultimate judge

Also reviewed: Those Who Listen – New Irish Writing on the Bog

Debutant Djamel White, whose literary crime thriller was longlisted for the Booker Prize, is up for two awards

The novel ‘was always a form that not only thrived on inequalities but required them’, Philip Hensher says

This story of aspiration, romance, disappointment and reconciliation drags in the middle

An incisive and vital book, with a glaring omission

The title of this collection makes sense as many characters follow strange orbits

Paul Cullen’s book examines the planning mistakes, disputes and spiralling costs behind a hospital that was once expected to open in 2011

Catriona Clutterbuck on Throat Full of Feathers; Estuary; This Deep; The Matter

Most of the characters are puppet-like, reduced to stereotypes

Despite us being brought up to believe the West is a place of democracy and peace, for many it’s justifiably linked only to death, destruction and corruption

Supernatural a pervasive preoccupation, as is the relationship between sisters, and the circular nature of time

Rich writing on dealing with grief could have undertaken a slower, deeper exploration

The author reimagines Gustave Flaubert in her new novel, asking what literature can offer us in a time of war, political upheaval and uncertainty

Books by Mark Little and Christopher M Kelty take radically different approaches to the web’s lost promise

Novels by Sorj Chalandon, Alex Hyde and Madeline Miller

Plus new works from Lex Croucher, Adam Simcox, James Islington and Benedict Anning

While the author clearly admires his subject, this is no hagiography

A tale about listening and attuning oneself to signals from the air

A blistering honesty defines the prose, a willingness to present the author in an unflattering light

Well-paced account of Cowen’s public life leaves no clear picture of the man behind the decisions

Books by Valerian Pidmohylnyi, Sevgi Soysal, Olga Tokarczuk, Hernán Ronsino, Glenn Bech and Thure Erik Lund

Frank Shovlin provides an authoritative insight into a reclusive figure who was dedicated to his craft

Cork-based story at its strongest when focusing on The boy and a villainous land baron with eyes on the gangland throne

Showcasing the natural world; Ukraine from the front line; football, ground by ground

Susskind leans heavily on the analogy of the calculator as a disruptor to maths education

This is science made accessible in the golden age of neuroscience

Multiple threads converge into a research-crammed, physics-dense exploration of consciousness and human essence

Author’s elegant prose captures the anguish of dementia

Novel about modern Spiritualism mixes investigative journalism, ekphrastic essay and swampy detective fiction

Author’s full-on, pitch-perfect retelling blends visceral brutality with pure poetry