Zona by Geoff Dyer
I’m on a flight, heading eastwards for 36 hours in Bucharest[1]. Flying out of Luton at 10pm on a MondayContinue Reading
Tag: Book Review
The Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet
It is 1230am on a Friday night, I am (which is very rare for me) not at work, my girlfriendContinue Reading
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Over the last month, Don Quixote has travelled a huge amount with me. He was with me for the tailContinue Reading
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Many months ago, back when I had a regular social life, a friend of mine who works in publishing gaveContinue Reading
Othello by William Shakespeare
About two months ago I spent a week in Finland, driving through the countryside from flea market to charity shopContinue Reading
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
This is the 300th book review I have posted on this blog*, and it seems appropriate that its focus is aContinue Reading
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
fuck So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckContinue Reading
The Life of a Stupid Man by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
I read another one of those cute Penguin Little Black Classics, this one a collection of three short stories byContinue Reading
Flaubert in Egypt by Gustave Flaubert (kind of)*
Flaubert in Egypt is ostensibly (though it isn’t) a book written by Gustave Flaubert about his hedonistic travels through EgyptContinue Reading
How I Escaped My Certain Fate by Stewart Lee
During the Summer I crossed a line in the sand I scratched out a long time ago and, accepting mortality andContinue Reading
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
I’ve been reading a massive book* since I got back from my holiday last month, and have only just reached its end.Continue Reading
Notes on Suicide by Simon Critchley
Slowly, the land recedes. I am writing this on a ferry, pushing its way across the surprisingly flat Bay (orContinue Reading
Red Doc> by Anne Carson
It’s been a while since I’ve read any poetry. Life, I find, often gets in the way. Life, which isn’tContinue Reading
Anglo-English Attitudes by Geoff Dyer
I’m writing this on my phone, stood in the queue at the Apple Store where I’ve gone to replace myContinue Reading
¡Tequila!: Distilling the Spirit of Mexico by Marie Sarita Gaytán
Marie Sarita Gaytán is an American academic (an Assistant Professor of Sociology) and ¡Tequila!: Distilling the Spirit of Mexico is anContinue Reading
Midland: A Novel Out of Time by Honor Gavin
midlands novel and a road trip into childhood
To Wetumpka by Ellis Sharp
A couple of weeks ago, I got a strange email from a small publishing house, Zoilus Press. They said thatContinue Reading
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
The Vegetarian by Han Kang is an odd book. I bought it for myself on my mad, wild, Foyles birthdayContinue Reading
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Iran. Who knows much about it? We’ve all seen Argo, we’ve all heard of nuclear weapons, we’re all aware thatContinue Reading
Purity by Jonathan Franzen
I read every other novel by Jonathan Franzen during a period of about 18 months after really, really enjoying FreedomContinue Reading
Malcolm Lowry: Psalms and Songs (edited by Margerie Lowry
Psalms and Songs is an odd book, a collection of short stories by Malcolm Lowry (some previously published, others unfinished),Continue Reading
Leviathan or, The Whale by Philip Hoare
Whales. What are they? Who are they? And why did humans stop killing them just before their extinction was finallyContinue Reading
The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson
Malcolm Lowry, secret hero of these blog posts, fell into a deep depression after the publication of Charles Jackson’s TheContinue Reading
Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann
Rosamond Lehmann is not a widely-read novelist any more, though in the middle of the 20th-century, she was both popularContinue Reading
Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
The first Cormac McCarthy novel I read was 2006’s The Road, and it is by far and away his best.Continue Reading
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Big books. I have an odd relationship with ’em. The idea of big books, to be honest, I have aContinue Reading
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a big, serious novel all about big, serious things. It is intelligent, articulate, humaneContinue Reading
Lost Dogs by Jeff Lemire
Jeff Lemire’s Lost Dogs is a graphic novel first published in 2006. It is a dark, terrifying and immersive pieceContinue Reading
Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch is one of the handful of writers who I return to with regular irregularity. Like Graham Greene, VirginiaContinue Reading
October Ferry To Gabriola by Malcolm Lowry
As I continue to read through the (surprisingly) ever-expanding oeuvre of the alcoholic, depressive, late-Modernist writer, Malcolm Lowry, I amContinue Reading
Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson
So, am back in London and have a little over an hour in which to wash, shave, iron clothes, cleanContinue Reading
The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin
I don’t really understand what is the fucking point of this dull novel. Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed is aContinue Reading
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Last night, as I wandered between bars and cafes in Taksim, North of the Golden Horn, I read most ofContinue Reading
The Sugar Syndrome by Lucy Prebble
I haven’t read a play for a while. I used to read plays all the time, it was one ofContinue Reading
9th and 13th by Jonathan Coe
I picked this up a while ago from a secondhand bookshop somewhere, shortly after reading Jonathan Coe’s Like A FieryContinue Reading
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Well, it is good. It’s good. It’s possibly great, but it’s definitely good. Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend is basicallyContinue Reading
A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck
I’m going on a trip to Russia in about six weeks, so have begun my travel research. Unlike normal people,Continue Reading
Victoria by Knut Hamsun
I know I should be spending my free time writing something that isn’t this blog. I know I should haveContinue Reading
How To Use Your Enemies by Baltasar Gracián
I decided to read another one of the tiny little Penguin Classics. This one, How To Use Your Enemies byContinue Reading
Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon
Sometimes I read novels where I can’t really see why they were written. Novels that say very little to meContinue Reading
A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing was a surprise critical smash in the heady days of 2013/14, atContinue Reading
Audition by Ryu Murakami
I haven’t read a novel by the “other” Murakami for years. In my long and distant and pre-blogging past, IContinue Reading
Mrs Rosie and the Priest by Giovanni Boccaccio
I don’t know if anyone else likes little books as much as I do, but I’ve been particularly charmed recentlyContinue Reading
The Tongues of Men or Angels by Jonathan Trigell
I like Biblical novels. So much so that I wrote one*, and so much so that after reading about ten/twenty,Continue Reading
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
A very easy way of gauging how much I’ve enjoyed a book is how long it takes me to readContinue Reading
Getting Colder by Amanda Coe
Getting Colder by Amanda Coe is a great, contemporary novel. It is fun, quite haunting in places and it isContinue Reading
Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book Four by Karl Ove Knausgaard
For the past four years, the big literary release (for me) has been the continuing publication of Karl Ove Knausgaard’sContinue Reading
Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre is another one of those hip, nihilistic-type novelists than whiney, depressive young men read in-between bouts of binge-drinkingContinue Reading
The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth
The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth was a surprising literary hit of 2014. Not a “literary hit” in that it soldContinue Reading
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
I thoroughly enjoyed The Paying Guests, which was a relief as the last book I read was DIRE. I’d neverContinue Reading
Triumph Of The Now 