In a way, Damon Galgut’s “In a Strange Room” only comes to life in the third and final section. This is where there is real pace and drama and is so different to what comes before that the novel eventually seems more like a loose collection of novellas. Yes, there is a constant character throughout… Read More “In a Strange Room”

What can you tell from the title of a book, its cover, the blurb that goes with it? Too often these prove insufficient clues as to what might be hidden inside – good or bad. Sometimes when we’re buying a new book we’ll take a punt; but more often than not, we probably settle for… Read More Openings

As much as I like and admire William Golding’s work, “Darkness Visible” missed a beat for me. It almost felt as if his characters had gifted him with multiple themes yet he hadn’t been able to exactly settle on the central one when he was writing it. Thus the focus seems to shift been the… Read More “Darkness Visible”

There is something of the fairy story about Fredrik Backman’s “Anxious People” – which probably shouldn’t be a surprise from the man who have us “A Man Called Ove”. You might also argue that “Anxious People” is a rare novel these days: one which, in the flurry of positivity towards the end, manages to resolve… Read More “Anxious People”

Having loved Fiona Mozley’s Booker-nominated debut “Elmet”, I simply wasn’t prepared for “Hot Stew”. To my mind the two books are so ‘chalk and cheese’ that they could have been written by different people. Not that “Hot Stew” is a ‘bad’ book. It isn’t. But it is remarkably different in subject matter, style and tone.… Read More “Hot Stew”

When a new novel is published rarely does it polarise opinion as much as Kasuo Ishiguro’s “The Unconsoled”. For many it was a masterpiece, unlike anything else ever written – for others it was simply not very good and roundly vilified. There seemed to be no middle ground. My own reaction when I started to… Read More “The Unconsoled”

Having read positive reviews of Elena Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend’, when I saw her more recent “The Lying Life of Adults” in the bookshop I didn’t hesitate to buy it – it was, I was told, also ‘astonishing’, ‘irresistible’, ‘intense’. Well, I’m afraid the word that kept popping into my head was ‘dull’. More than… Read More “The Lying Life of Adults”

Andrew O’Hagan’s “Mayflies” is unrelenting. During the first half of the book where we see a group of Scottish lads on ‘the lash’ in Manchester, he immerses us in their over-the-top hedonistic experience of drink, drugs and music without giving us a chance to come up for air. Then, in the second half of the… Read More “Mayflies”

Bernadine Evaristo’s “Girl, Woman, Other” is – quite simply – a triumph. I have no idea why it has taken me so long to read it. Perhaps I was put-off by its 450 pages, or the blurb, or the cover – the last two of these suggesting that somehow it wasn’t going to be ‘my… Read More “Girl, Woman, Other”

It was partly because I liked Richard Powers’ “The Overstory” so much that I tried as hard as I could to get through “Galatea 2.2” – but I simply couldn’t finish it, and gave up about a third of the way through. It has been a while since I last had to admit defeat like… Read More “Galatea 2.2”

It is easy to see why David Diop’s relentlessly dark “At Night All Blood Is Black” won the 2021 International Booker Prize. The novel is suitably dark and brooding, an examination of one man’s decline into madness as he and his French compatriots fight in the trenches of World War One. Alfa’s Senegalese roots permeates… Read More “At Night All Blood Is Black”

Elsewhere I have observed how – to my palette at least – some books have not aged well in terms of their writing style. In the case of Alain-Fournier’s “Le Grand Meaulnes” I find a novel that has not travelled well both in terms of style and plot. Indeed, I was most struck by how… Read More “Le Grand Meaulnes”