Book Reviews

New books by Keith Waldrop, Samar Yazbek and Jules Boykoff

This tremendous book is concerned with the impact of the past upon the present

Candice Carty-Williams offers the reader an abundance of humour and heart

From space stations to 1960s LA, these stories will transport and delight any reader

John Waddell takes the reader on a deeply personal tour and makes for the perfect guide

Writer crafts a book from a friendship she builds with American painter Mollie Douthit, and interrogates herself as to her motivations

Evans’s latest work can be read as part of her ongoing inquiry into the ways we survive in a world of vampiric thirst and intoxicated protocol

Books by Cindy Pham, Wren James, Edward Schmidt, Tom Ramsay and Kai Spellmeier

Late writer’s memoir is equally striking in its treatment of female desire and the need to be seen

David Thompson, having devoted his life to writing about film, suggests the medium has begun to diminish our very nature

A deeply researched yet readable survey of Slav-Teuton antagonisms from the late 1800s to the present

Keith Kahn-Harris does his subject matter a great service in a book that is not just about the Black Sabbath frontman, but about legacy and mortality too

While the technical reasons are convincingly explained, they feel like basic common sense

The critic’s love and care shine through in this compendium of her theatre writing from 1984 to the present

Works by Mary Daly, Bernie McQuillan and Chloë Ashby

This is a portrait of a mother with a stunningly unfeminist approach to mothering and all of her personal relationships

Ninth novel from Indian author questions expectations and notions of ‘classic’ French ideal

As in The Godfather, the characters are bound not just by crime and family, but because they are immigrants

The author argues that democracy is built to facilitate abject inequality, not to combat it

Lister argues that women have never been less sexual than men, but the narrative has been controlled with a firm male grip

This Dark Night: The Life of Emily Brontë benefits from access to the writer’s rediscovered poetry notebook and Lutz’s expert reappraisals of her poems

New fiction from Emily Hourican, Catherine Doyle, Ciara O’Connor, Shane Hegarty, Christopher Galvin, Mitch Johnson, Matt Oldfield, Gordon D’Arcy and Paul Howard

Mícheál McCann reviews new collections by Rachel Long, Billy Ramsell, Máighréad Medbh and Moyra Donaldson

There are plenty of villains in the Donegal writer’s authoritative probe on how gambling has infected soccer’s soul

Authors Richard Heller and Peter Oborne bat for the greatest thing on God’s Earth in this well-researched book

There was, the author writes, ‘no history of what had happened to me’ or historical women, of ‘experiences long considered to be too private... to be admitted as true history’

Final instalment in French author’s family cycle project reconfigures the nature of autobiography

New books from Christopher Morash, Meena Kandasamy and Mary Daly

Modern-day Grapes of Wrath describes how Chris Smalls set out to unionise Amazon warehouse workers

Author of Less returns with a warm, hopeful novel set in Italy

‘What a glum mood runs through this anthology’

Critic Sathnam Sanghera responds to a feeling there has never been a serious examination of George Michael the music-maker

A History of Down High School, 200 years of the Impartial Reporter, and A History of First Presbyterian Church Armagh

Rather than being transported by this 750-pager, one has the sense of being trapped within an elaborate in-joke

Although some might find the style of this novel about the love between two male friends a little too florid, the author pulls it off

Book features an account of disruption and changes confronting societies - the author is emphatic that further upheaval is not the answer

Mageean’s memoir is a testament to determination, ambition and resilience

Autobiography of a Face details with visceral accuracy one woman’s experience of living with rare bone cancer

Plus works by Sara Mesa; Inès Cagnati; Eugenia Ladra; Eva Vezhnavets; and Alejandra Kamiya

A writer perfectly placed to examine the impact of this ‘act of self-harm’