book reviews and features
'In order to write my book I had to kill Jane Austen'![]()
My heroine would not have appeared in a Jane Austen novel. Brilliant, arch and incisive though Austen... Read more... |
Stephen Walsh's Debussy - A Painter in Sound - extract![]()
All this time La Mer had been brewing. It was almost a year since Debussy had written to Colonne... Read more... |
Lisa Halliday: Asymmetry review - unconventional and brilliant
Lisa Halliday’s striking debut novel consists of three parts. The first follows the blooming relationship between Alice and Ezra (... Read more... |
Rhidian Brook on The Killing of Butterfly Joe![]()
When I was 23 I had a job selling butterflies in glass cases in America. I worked for a guy who, as well as... Read more... |
Ursula K Le Guin - Dreams Must Explain Themselves review - enraging and enlightening![]()
Essay collections are happily mainstream now, from Zadie Smith to Oliver Sacks, with more and more bits and bobs coming from unexpected quarters. These patchwork quilts from remarkable writers can... Read more... |
John Tusa: 'the arts must make a noise' - interview![]()
In our era of 24/7 news, downloadable from anywhere in the world at the touch of an app, it's hard to... Read more... |
Mick Herron: London Rules review - hypnotically fascinating, absolutely contemporary![]()
London Rules – explicitly cover your arse – is the fifth in the most remarkable and mesmerising series of ... Read more... |
Roma Agrawal: Built review - solid love![]()
"I've been known to stroke concrete," writes self-professed geek Roma Agrawal – and from the very beginning of her memoir-cum-introduction... Read more... |
Joe Dunthorne: The Adulterants review - a richly illuminating comedy of disappointment![]()
Joe Dunthorne's debut novel Submarine (2008) burrowed plausibly inside the head of a teenager... Read more... |
Afua Hirsch: Brit(ish) review - essential reading on identity![]()
Usually extracts in newspapers should stimulate the appetite of the reader to get with it; this is a rare moment when the glimpses afforded to Afua Hirsch’s Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and... Read more... |
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