mon 29/09/2025

book reviews and features

Mieko Kawakami: Breasts and Eggs review - a book of two halves

India Lewis

Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs is a true novel of two halves and is (excuse the pun) a bit of a curate’s egg. Kawakami’s bio at the beginning of the text explains that the novel was...

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Hilary Fannin: The Weight of Love review – unravelling knotty lives

Lauren Brown

The relationship between Joe, Robin and Ruth is far from your average love triangle. On the face of it, Robin loves Ruth, but after introducing her to his charismatic friend Joe – an artist and...

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Rebecca Solnit: Recollections of My Non-Existence review - feminism, hope and the great American West

India Lewis

Rebecca Solnit’s autobiography, Recollections of My Non-Existence, is just as you might expect it to be – tangential, changeable, deeply feminist, and imbued with a sense of hope that...

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Joanna Trollope: Mum & Dad review - redemption in Spain

Marina Vaizey

In common with her literary forebear, Joanna Trollope’s light hand refrains from the introverted angst so common in contemporary novels. Her immensely readable, witty renderings of English...

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Christos Tsiolkas: Damascus review - the author of The Slap goes biblical

Markie Robson-Scott

To Christos Tsiolkas fans expecting something in the vein of his riveting bestsellers The Slap and Barracuda, the sixth novel by this Australian writer may come as a shock. We're...

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Michael Nath: The Treatment review - 'deeds, and language, such as men do use'

Daniel Lewis

Great writing about – or set in – London has one thing in common: voice. It’s tuned into the city’s multiple...

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Pete Paphides: Broken Greek review - top of the pop memoirs

Owen Richards

Think of the phrase “music ...

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'You’re Jewish. With a name like Neumann, you have to be'

Ariana Neumann

It was during my first week at Tufts University in America, when I was 17, that I was told by a stranger that I was...

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Imagining Ireland, Barbican review - raising women's voices

Tim Cumming

Recent politics surround the EU and nationhood, fantasies of Irish Sea bridges and trading...

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Panikos Panayi: Migrant City review – the capital of the world

Boyd Tonkin

Some menus never change. In 1910, the Loyal British Waiters Society came into being, prompted by “xenophobic resentment at the dominance of foreigners in the restaurant trade”. London’s German...

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