Book Review: Bewilderment – Richard Powers
Bewilderment is not perfect, but it is brilliant.
Book Review: Defects – Eoin O’Broin
"Even if Ó Broin does stop short of laying the blame directly at the altar of capitalism, he has once again written an extremely useful book for critics of the…
Book Review: Heaven – Mieko Kawakami
"An attention to detail that pulses, a directness somehow both soft and sharp, sadness fraying round the edges... Heaven is a philosophical exercise in examining the responsibilities we have towards…
Book Review: Things Are Against Us
Lucy Ellman’s first nonfiction collection provides the sort of incisive and acerbic look into the world to be expected from the author of Ducks, Newburyport (2019), her 1,030 page, Goldsmiths…
Book Review: The Divorce – César Aira
The masterly Roberto Bolaño proclaimed César Aira to be ‘a writer who defies all classification,’ adding that ‘once you’ve read Aira, you don’t want to stop’. That is really all…
Book Review: Mayflies – Andrew O’Hagan
"Andrew O’Hagan has produced a novel of divergent quality; the first half is uninspired, the second half is profound, even triumphant."
Book Review: Looking Through You: Northern Chronicles – Gerald Dawe
Looking Through You: Northern Chronicles is an elegant meditation on poet Gerald Dawe’s relationship to his home city, Belfast.
Book Review: The Discomfort of Evening – Marieke Rijneveld
"The Discomfort of Evening is effectively unsettling and warped. More a story of neglect than of grief, this novel shows us how being there physically just isn’t enough." - Courtney…
Book Review: Meanwhile in Dopamine City – DBC Pierre
While admirably inventive, Pierre’s latest is beset by the shortcomings James Wood once ascribed to a genre he called ‘hysterical realism’.
Book Review: Postcard Stories 2 – Jan Carson
Postcard Stories 2 enters a world bruised by confinement, restriction, and the consciousness of frailty.
Book Review: OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea – Patrick Freyne
"Throughout this endearing collection of essays, Freyne displays again and again this gift for finding hope in the humdrum."
Book Review: A Ghost in the Throat – Doireann Ní Ghríofa
‘When we first met, I was a child, and she had been dead for centuries.’ She is Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, and the I speaking here is Doireann Ní Ghríofa.
Book Review: The Liar’s Dictionary – Eley Williams
Eley Williams’s debut novel The Liar’s Dictionary expands on the interest in words and wordplay demonstrated in her 2017 prize-winning collection of short stories.
Book Review: Love after Love – Ingrid Persaud
‘People have all kinds of families.’ This one is fractured and shadowed, but the pages ultimately burst full, love after love after love.
Book Review: The Tainted – Cauvery Madhavan
The Tainted is essential reading for those with an interest in Anglo-Irish or Anglo-Indian history, and the far-reaching consequences of colonialism.
Book Review: Lost, Found, Remembered – Lyra McKee
"Knowing how the author’s life came to such a tragic, untimely end makes it difficult to read a collection so full of enthusiasm and hope."
Book Review: A Girl’s Story – Annie Ernaux
In A Girl’s Story, Annie Ernaux goes back to 1958 and her first sexual experience ... What comes of looking back is an essay-memoir that brims with meaning.
Book Review: Oona – Alice Lyons
Lyons’ world-orphaned, confessional voice and self-fascination clearly mines a seam of the great American tradition epitomised by Walt Whitman’s proto-slacker epic, Song of Myself.