book reviews and features
Niall Griffiths: Broken Ghost review - Welsh visions of hope and loss
Sunday, 18 August 2019
The trend-hopping taste-makers who run British literary publishing have lately decided that “working-class” writing merits a small dole of their precious time and cash. To assess how long this... Read more... |
Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World ed. Zahra Hankir review – journalism from the front lines
Sunday, 11 August 2019
Many of the women in this pioneering collection of essays have faced unimaginable hardship in their pursuit of... Read more... |
The Collection: Nina Leger trans. Laura Francis - daring, direct and richly imagined
Sunday, 11 August 2019
Jeanne – employment, age and appearance unknown, motives unknowable – is building a collection of penises. In street after street, she feigns dizziness; on the inevitable approach of a man eager... Read more... |
Rachel DeLoache Williams: My Friend Anna review - a fraudster for the Instagram age?
Tuesday, 06 August 2019
Of all the ventures that super-fraudster Anna Delvey might have chosen as bait for her victims, an exclusive... Read more... |
Martin Hägglund: This Life - Why Mortality Makes Us Free review - profound book to be read slowly
Sunday, 04 August 2019
Swedish-born multi-lingual academic Martin Hägglund lives in New York and teaches philosophy and comparative literature at Yale. His new book, This Life, is a substantial examination of secular... Read more... |
Vic Marks: Original Spin review - trouble in Taunton
Sunday, 21 July 2019
In cricket, timing is everything. Played a fraction early and that silky cover drive finds a batsman out to lunch as... Read more... |
Gina Apostol: Insurrecto review – a treacherous archipelago of stories
Sunday, 14 July 2019
As in other countries born out of 19th-century uprisings against imperial power, the literary roots of the Philippines run deep. Executed by the Spanish in 1896, the novelist, poet and physician... Read more... |
CD - The Lost Words: Spell Songs
Sunday, 07 July 2019
Earlier this year, eight musicians – Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever... Read more... |
Svetlana Alexievich: Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories review - anything but childish
Sunday, 30 June 2019
Svetlana Alexievich’s Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories is a collection of oral testimonies conducted between 1978-2004 with... Read more... |
Ocean Vuong: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous review – the new avant-garde
Sunday, 23 June 2019
Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is written as a letter to his mother, who cannot read. She cannot read because... Read more... |
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