Lots of paperbacks to look forward to as we head towards what publishers see as the holiday reading season. My first choice might well fall into that category. Emily Adrian’s Seduction Theory sees an apparently perfect marriage between two academics begin to crumble through the long summer vacation. Simone’s made her mark as the star […]

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An international bestseller, Ia Genberg’s The Details was one of 2023’s standout reads for me. Published for the first time in English, this year’s International Booker Prize longlisted Small Comfort is an earlier novel, also translated by Kira Joseffson. It has a similar structure, following five characters although this time the link is money rather […]

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April’s snapshot includes an exposé of jaw-dropping fraud in the art world, a short story collection from a writer whose novels I love and a novel set during the pandemic in a once grand Egyptian hotel about a mischievous octogenarian who meets her match in an eight-year-old boy. The non-fiction book I’m reading is Orlando […]

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May’s second preview begins with the first standalone novel in some time from an author whose series are beloved by many. Spanning several years either side of the 2024 presidential election, Elizabeth Strout’s The Things We Never Say follows a high school history teacher, a favourite of both students and staff. Apparently happily married to […]

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I reviewed Ben Lerner’s novella 10:04 here over a decade ago, commenting on its many-layered interconnections, impossible to encapsulate in a short post. Since then, I’ve read Leaving the Atocha Station which brought him a great deal of acclaim although, for me, it didn’t match 10.04. Divided into three parts, Transcription is another brief novel […]

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