Category: Reviews
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Person Unlimited: An Ode to My Black Queer Body
By Dean Atta Canongate Books, Paperback, £10.99 In this memoir, celebrated children’s author and poet Dean Atta looks back at his life so far, not chronologically but thematically, using different approaches to explore his evolving relationship with his body. The book is not so much about his career as a writer, or only incidentally, rather…
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The Librarianist
by Patrick deWitt Paperback, £9.99 Patrick deWitt’s novels belong to a world of their own – mannered, somewhat stylised, an internal logic that is revealed only when necessary. They are all sharp dialogue, dry humour, absurdity, and human drama. A bit like Wes Anderson in novel form, but without the massive self-indulgence. And they are…
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The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver Paperback, £9.99 That the Price family’s move to the Belgian Congo is doomed is a given. How that doom manifests, and how the family recover, makes for a remarkably tense and compelling read. Very much one of the very few titles I wish I had never read so I can discover it…
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A Helping Hand
by Celia Dale Paperback, £9.99 Mid-century psychological horror, if labels are your thing. Otherwise a deeply unsettling, expertly crafted tale of bitter people doing mean things behind closed doors whilst [barely] keeping up appearances. Very English, very cruel, very unforgiving and very underrated.
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A History of the World in 47 Borders
by John Elledge Paperback, £10.99 I love a lateral history. They are a great way of reading history without getting bogged down in some of the things that history books like to get bogged down in, such as dry analysis, endnotes, learning-worn-heavily, that sort of thing. They can also be a bit disappointing owing to…
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The Year we Learned to Fly
By Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael López Paperback £7.99 This bright and beautiful picture book opens with kids who are stuck indoors during endless rain and can’t think of anything to do… this is the start of so many children’s books. But this one is different. Grandmother helps the children fly using their imaginations, which take…
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Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter
Kat Hill Paperback, £10.99 Bothys are small basic shelters, of varying degrees of comfort, in remote spots in Scotland and beyond. They provide refuge for walkers, and are beloved of many. This book on bothy stories and culture, will make you want to get out into the wilds, right now. I heard Kat Hill lecture…
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Monkey Grip
by Helen Garner Paperback, £9.99 This Australian classic, made famous in the 1970s for being radical about sex, drugs and women’s experience, is beautifully worded, raw and dark, exploring being infatuated with the wrong people. The harder you pull away, the stronger the grip becomes.
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The Driver’s Seat
by Muriel Spark Paperback, £9.99 A psychological thriller that will test the mettle of reader sympathy. The Driver’s Seat is Muriel Spark at her most direct, most stark and most deviously playful. A short manipulative read with a lasting impact.
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Who is John Blanke?
By Michael I Ohajuru (editor) Hardback £35 John Blanke was a Black trumpeter at the Tudor court, present in archival documents including a letter asking for a pay rise, and in a striking image from a vellum roll showing the celebrations of the birth of a son to Henry VIII. I felt I had been…
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The Ministry of Time
by Kaliane Bradley, paperback, £9.99 Silly, romantic, and stuffed with ideas, this hugely entertaining novel made me laugh at the snappy dialogue and gasp at the twists. The narrator is a civil servant who is assigned to look after one of several people who have arrived from the past. Her assignment is Commander Graham Gore,…
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Dead Animals
by Phoebe Stuckes Paperback, £9.99 It can be nerve-wracking when a well-remembered former colleague writes a book. Will we be in it? Will it be good? Declaration of interest: Phoebe Stuckes is that colleague, our former bookseller extraordinaire. And having been wowed by Phoebe’s poems in Platinum Blonde, I knew that her novel would be…
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Counterattacks at Thirty
By Won-pyung Sohn Hardback £16.99 I started reading Counterattacks at Thirty a week after turning thirty myself, and it has been a while since I have felt a strong connection with the main character of a novel. Kim Jihye is at the early stages of her career (read: internship); she lives in a poorly lit…
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Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob
By Huw Aaron Paperback £7.99 This is a very funny and fresh take on the going-to-bed-now picture book for little children. The parent and child Disgusting Blobs who are settling in for the night are appealing and cuddly despite dripping slime. A cast of those we are used to thinking of as baddies and monsters…
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I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman Paperback, £9.99 SISTERHOOD. SECRETS. SURVIVAL. Discover the haunting, heart-breaking post-apocalyptic TikTok sensation. Deep underground, thirty-nine women are kept in isolation in a cage. Above ground, a world awaits. Has it been abandoned? Devastated by a virus?Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of…
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Greek Lessons
by Han Kang Paperback, £9.99 Beautifully written, this slender book offers a quiet yet haunting narrative. I particularly enjoyed the books meditation on language abd our individual relation to it, and how it connects us to each other not only in metaphorical but also quite tangible ways. Readers who enjoyed Kang’s ‘The White Book’ cannot…
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The Years
By Annie Erneaux Paperback £13.99 I have read The Years to prepare for the play adaptation playing in the West End at the Harold Pinter theatre. I always try to read the book before I see any adaptation (whether it is a play or a film) and I am so glad I got to experience…
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Dream Count
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Hardback £20 ‘Does it help to know that the world is full of people who are sadder than you?’ ‘But I am not sad, I just dream.’ I rarely underline or highlight my books, and yet for some reason I had to mark a lot of the passages in Dream Count, as…
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