Following the critical acclaim for her last two novels, My Year of Meats (1998) and All Over Creation (2003), it is perhaps no surprise that Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being has been received with equal literary approbation. Ozeki’s current offering is a seamless fusion of semi-autobiographical narrative, ecological perspicacity, and philosophical meditation. Read More
There are at least two ways of contextualising Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary. It is the latest in a succession of recent works on Jesus and his times. English translations of the then pope Joseph Ratzinger’s volumes Jesus of Nazareth (2007), Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week (2011), and Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives Read More
Jhumpa Lahiri’s skill lies in immersing her readers within the environments which she crafts. Shortlisted also for the Man Booker Prize 2013, her latest novel, The Lowland, showcases this ability. The book, set in Calcutta, now Kolkata, is about a family who are profoundly affected by the Naxalite movement in India shortly after political independence Read More
Eleanor Catton’s second novel, The Luminaries, opens with the arrival of Scotsman Walter Moody in Hokitika on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island during the gold rush of 1866. A group of twelve men, the eponymous luminaries, are meeting to unravel a complex story involving stolen gold, a vanished man, a dead recluse, Read More
The debut novel by Australian writer Christopher Currie, The Ottoman Motel is a mystery centred around eleven year old Simon Sawyers. The plot follows Simon and his parents as they reach the small town of Reception on a family holiday caused ostensibly by a sudden need to visit Simon’s estranged grandmother. However, after falling asleep Read More
It’s not often that you hear an original new voice in writing, but Dickson Telfer’s debut collection of short stories seems to signal him as owning just such a voice. The stories have impressive imaginative power, depicting kaleidoscopic worlds seen from skewed angles through highly coloured prisms. There is great variation in his narrative style Read More
Expectations are curious creatures; sometimes they are too weighty and hinder the book’s or film’s imaginative flight. I’ve always looked forward to an Ian McEwan novel. I loved his Austenite homage in Atonement, the reflective stock-taking in Saturday and the inventiveness of Amsterdam. In the main, I am deaf to accusations that he writes middle-brow Read More
Cal McGill is back. The sea detective, introduced in the eponymous novel of 2011, gets involved in a second adventure that brings together old and new family models, suppressed secrets, unrequited love and the mysteries of the ocean. In a crowded market, authors of crime or mystery fiction have to try ever harder to make Read More
Connoisseurs of literary novels are sometimes known to have a somewhat sniffy attitude towards genre fiction. But what happens when literary novels themselves become generic and derivative? Take Francesca Rhydderch’s debut novel, The Rice Paper Diaries for example. Set primarily in Hong Kong before and during the Japanese invasion, and in Wales in the years Read More