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
Tag: review
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
I’m going to be honest, I did not get what the point of Molloy was. Oooh, it was Beckettian; itContinue Reading
The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas
Obnoxiously (the manner in which I do most things), I read Tarjei Vesaas’ The Birds because Karl Ove Knausgaard refersContinue Reading
The Great War by Joe Sacco
Joe Sacco’s wordless, 8 metre long panorama of the first day of the Battle of the Somme is a harrowingContinue Reading
Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf
Both the blurb and the author biography of my 1980s edition of Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf state that thisContinue Reading
Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende
I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Isabel Allende is brilliant, an under-rated writer of supreme skill,Continue Reading
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Fuck it, I’m going to discuss the plot. MONKEYS. It’s about MONKEYS. Or, to be technical, chimps. Chimpanzees (which aren’tContinue Reading
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
Child of God was Cormac McCarthy’s third novel, and is the first book of his I’ve read for a while.Continue Reading
Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams by Sylvia Plath
I intended to read Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams for a while, but held off doing so forContinue Reading
Penguin Modern Stories 7
I sourced this 1971 collection of short stories for one simple reason: ‘For Bolocks Please Read Blocks Throughout’, a B.Continue Reading
Lonesome Traveler by Jack Kerouac
Last Summer, whilst twatpacking* around the Mediterranean, Tunisair lost my backpack between Casablanca and Tunis. Though it contained nothing ofContinue Reading
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is, I must begrudgingly admit, a great Haruki Murakami novel. One ofContinue Reading
How to be both by Ali Smith
Ali Smith’s latest novel – How to be both – has been shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker PrizeContinue Reading
Working the Room by Geoff Dyer
As often happens with essay collections (particularly ones read for the writer’s personality rather than his or her topics), WorkingContinue Reading
A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne is the writer of the (rightly) famous Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. A hilarious and experimentalContinue Reading
Boyhood Island: My Struggle Book Three by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Karl Ove Knausgaard is one of my favourite writers. It would probably be fair to say that he is one of (inContinue Reading
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch is huge. It is a massive, time-consuming tome that, though it is fun and exciting and gripping,Continue Reading
Poems Two by B. S. Johnson
I love B. S. Johnson. He is one of my favourite writers. The Unfortunates I have read more than once andContinue Reading
Cycle of Violence by Grayson Perry
PHWOAR! Grayson Perry’s highly sexualised, highly violent, highly fucking weird graphic novella from 1992 was my breakfast read this morning.Continue Reading
Review of 2013
A hip-hop review of the year now ending.
The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist by Orhan Pamuk
This little book, collected from a series of lectures Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk gave in 2009, is an interesting textContinue Reading
The Atrocity Exhibition by JG Ballard
This is the first book I have ever read by JG Ballard. I haven’t read any of his famous ones,Continue Reading
Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes
Wow. I just finished reading this long collection of themed poems, and found it pretty impressive. Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes’Continue Reading
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Wow. Fuck a diddle wank, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996) is a full blown literary compendium of joy. Deeply philosophical,Continue Reading
Travelling People by B. S. Johnson
Today I have returned to the British Library in order to read more out of print books by Bryan StanleyContinue Reading
Speedboat by Renata Adler
Renata Adler’s Speedboat is an award-winning experimental novel from 1976, recently republished by New York Review Books. I, however, was readingContinue Reading
The Sweet Smell of Psychosis by Will Self
I bought this for two pounds in a Walthamstow Oxfam. Definitely worth it. A tiny little picaresque novella, less thanContinue Reading
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Life goes on. The worst thing that can happen in a life is not the end of the world.* This,Continue Reading
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson, and more specifically his volume of interconnected short stories, Winesburg, Ohio, has had an odd history. Once considered aContinue Reading
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is an aggressive, brutal, novel that tears a reader through the depths of starvation, disease andContinue Reading
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
Like the fashionable urbanite I am, yet again I’ve arrived late to a party. The problem with encountering something highlyContinue Reading
A Man In Love: My Struggle Book Two by Karl Ove Knausgaard
A Death In The Family revolutionised the way I thought about literature. The honesty, the transparency, in Knausgaard’s autobiographical proseContinue Reading
Like a Fiery Elephant by Jonathan Coe
I first read B. S. Johnson years after first learning of him. His (somewhat infamous) “book in a box”, The Unfortunates,Continue Reading
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
When I drew up a list of experimental novels I felt I should read before my return to university inContinue Reading
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
I thoroughly enjoyed The Bell Jar. And I realise “enjoyed” might not sound like the appropriate word… I loved Plath’sContinue Reading
Catch-up Book Reviews Part Two
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace When this is good, this is very, very good. When it’sContinue Reading
Triumph Of The Now 