cos cheum nach gabh tilleadh For some, Robin Robertson’s book-length narrative poem is “unclassifiable”. Shortlisted for awards invariably dominated by prose, it is epic in both scale and ambition. Resisting the strict fit of epic form, its protagonist (the aptly-named Walker) is overly human for deification; its netherworld trips, earthly hells. Remembered paradises are also Read More
A novel’s first line is crucial. George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) begins, “It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992) begins, “The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of Read More
“I was woken at two a.m. and shackled and counted, Romy Leslie Hall, inmate W314159, and lined up with the others for an all-night ride up the valley.” This is how we first meet our protagonist in Rachel Kushner’s third novel ‒ a 29 year old mother serving two life sentences for murdering her stalker. Immediately, two Read More
‘I think often of all the dead who live in the water.’ Everything Under is a disturbing examination of the way our fears and secrets haunt us. Gretel Whiting recalls her search for her flighty mother, Sarah, and the shadows it unearths. She remembers her childhood on the canals with the woman who abandoned her Read More
The ancient saying – ‘time and tide wait for no man’ – provides a poignant way to sum up Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13, a modern-day novel set in rural England. It is a novel that lures the reader in, with an opening scene detailing a search party for a missing thirteen-year-old girl, before beginning its Read More
With Autumn, Ali Smith has written a work of such layered ingenuity that I’ve placed a bet on it to win the Booker. Smith, who has an enviable awards pedigree to her name – winner of the Whitbread, Baileys, Costa and Goldsmiths prizes and twice previously Booker-nominated, is one of those rare authors whose published Read More
Zadie Smith is no stranger to a literary award shortlist, but her fifth novel, Swing Time, is a particularly intriguing nominee for this year’s Man Booker Prize. Skilfully tackling complex issues of race, class and identity, Swing Time firstly gives us an honest and engaging insight into these subjects through the eyes of a seven-year-old Read More
“And if the hare was made of myths then so too was the land at which she scratched.” Elmet is a contemporary novel, set in rural Yorkshire, yet it seems to take us to a different time and a different world. The reference to Ted Hughes’ poetry collection (Remains of Elmet) in the title of Read More
Kamila Shamsie’s seventh novel is a modern-day retelling of Sophocles’ Antigone. Though most of her novels have been decidedly international in flavour, Home Fire is a wholly British Greek tragedy. The complexities of incest and the law of god have been traded for the complexities of morality and the rule of state. A novel of Read More
A Google search will inform curious readers that the word ‘’bardo’’ references an old Tibetan legend: souls making the transition from death to Nirvana, or, if they are less fortunate, to begin again in a new body, must first pass through the bardo. Think of it as a stopping station between different states of existence Read More
