This debut work of non-fiction has already received widespread critical acclaim – this year, it was shortlisted for the Wellcome Prize, and won the Wainwright Golden Beer Prize. As The Outrun is a memoir of Liptrot’s slide into alcoholism, and her efforts to remain sober by returning to the place of her birth and raising, Read More
Dirt Road, James Kelman’s latest novel, opens at the outset of a journey; Murdo, a sixteen-year-old accordionist, and his father, Tom, are travelling from Scotland to visit relatives in Alabama. Where one might expect feelings of excitement, the anticipation of an adventure, there is instead a solemn atmosphere. Murdo’s mother has recently passed away from Read More
From its title, Olivia Laing’s book The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone might give the impression of being some solemn self-help manual or brooding biography; instead, it is an honest and heart-wrenching exploration into one of life’s inexplicable plagues: loneliness. Finding herself alone in an altogether unfamiliar and alienating city, Laing Read More
Ahmet Altan is a murderer. At least, he is in the eyes of the unnamed, enigmatic narrator who, having recently taken a life, spends his own final hours musing about the relationships between God, an author, and his characters. Part existentialist essay and part murder mystery, Endgame is a story that slowly but surely draws Read More
Lemn Sissay’s ability to inspire a wide gamut of emotions in his reader makes his last published collection, the 2008 Listener, still a thought-provoking and vivid collection. Comprising of one short essay and 57 free verse poems his is an individual voice which simultaneously evokes pathos, joy, hope and longing. Whatever the topic, and there are Read More
Do you ever wonder what was it like for a Black person to live under the iron regime of Margaret Thatcher? Well wonder no more. Grab Lemn Sissay’s Rebel Without Applause and submerge yourself in his free verse, which bears witness to the lives of Black people in Manchester. Born and raised in Britain, Sissay Read More
There are a lot of islands off the North-West coast of Europe, so it is easy to get lost among them, or even mislay one. In Kevin Barry’s Beatlebone, John Lennon is trying to get back to his island in Clew Bay, in the very west of the West, but has forgotten which of them Read More
One Moonlit Night, Caradog Prichard’s only lyrical Welsh-language novel, has been re-released in this new edition. The novel is a haunting conjuring of the bleaker and more disturbing features of daily life in Bethesda, a small village in North Wales, during World War One. Retaining Philip Mitchell’s sympathetic 1995 English translation, it also includes two Read More
Tasha Kavanagh has previously published a number of children’s books, and judging by the tone and point of view of her first novel, Things We Have In Common, she is still drawn to that genre. Indeed, the subject matter here places this debut adult work into that crossover space shared by adult and ‘young adult’ Read More
“A girl always remembers the first corpse she shaves” is the first line in Caitlin Doughty’s memoir. It evokes interest and revulsion in exactly the way the author intended, and it’s a theme that is carried throughout. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is an aptly titled creation by a writer who describes herself in the Read More