Julian Lees (Sandstone Press, 2013); pbk £8.99 Before even beginning to read Julian Lee’s novel The House of the Trembling Leaves, the title provides poignant imagery with its suggested opposition: the sturdiness of a house to the fragility of leaves. This contrast between strong and weak is one that recurs in this poetic novel which Read More
Elizabeth Reeder (Kohl Publishing, 2012); pbk. £8.99. Elizabeth Reeder’s second novel, Fremont, follows hot on the heels of her well-received debut, Ramshackle. Fremont has the same assuredness and lightness of touch, strong characterisation, and beautiful poetic prose as the earlier novel. It also takes the reader to a different state, in many different ways. Fremont Read More
Guy Ware (Comma Press, 2012); pbk, £7.95. Identity is the prevalent theme in Guy Ware’s debut collection of short stories, You Have 24 Hours to Love Us.Various characters struggle with the urge and pressure to re-define themselves according to either society’s notions of identity or their own. Throughout his collection, Ware examines how individuals define Read More
Sara Sheridan (Polygon, 2013); hdbk, £16.99. “Very few of us are what we seem,” according to Agatha Christie. This statement expresses the tension between the way that English golden-age detective fiction is popularly understood and what it actually has to say about polite society. The line, on the one hand, has the air of homely Read More
E.H. Gombrich. (Yale, 2008); pbk: £7.99. If I were a daring editor at Yale, living in a parallel universe where rights issues were no obstacle, I’d consider giving this incredible little book a new subtitle. I’d call it A Little History of the World: A Stunning Example of Some of the Many Things Wikipedia Cannot Read More
Sophie Hannah (Hodder & Stoughton, 2006); pbk £7.99. The overall premise of Little Face, one of Sophie Hannah’s first novels to feature her now well-known characters, Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer, is promising. New mother Alice Fancourt lets her daughter out of her sight for the first time in the three weeks since Florence’s birth. Read More
Andy McNab (Corgi, 2010); pbk £1.99. To say that Andy McNab’s book Last Night Another Soldier… is a quick read is to put it mildly. Short, sharp and to the point it most certainly is. If you are looking for literary or thought provoking prose, look elsewhere. If you are young, (probably) male and inspired Read More
What is it with teenage fiction these days that it seems not to shirk from addressing some the most pressing ethical problems of the day, and in highly imaginative ways? Their sheer thematic ambitiousness – the Holocaust, betrayal complicity and guilt, disability, violence, war, terrorism and even planetary consciousness – has led to crossover audiences; Read More
John Wagner, Alan Grant, Brian Bolland, Brent Ewins, Cliff Robinson, Robin Smith (Rebellion, 2012; pbk, £6.99) Judge Dredd: The Dark Judges, a collection of four stories featuring Judge Death and his “Lawmen of the Apocalypse” (Judges Fear, Fire and Mortis respectively), acts as the perfect sequel to 2012’s underrated (and unfortunately under viewed) DREDD 3D. Read More