Ollie, Guardian reader I just finished reading Wimmy Road Boyz by Sufiyaan Salam. I absolutely adored this book, a fantastic combination of violence and vulnerability set on Manchester’s Curry Mile. I became... Read more »
Madeleine Thien, author Lately I have loved Dorothy Tse’s City Like Water, translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce. It is an unclassifiable, sharp, ingenious, passionate novel in which the city that is... Read more »
Luke Kennard, writer This is a really good year for new fiction. I don’t think anyone writes about contemporary Englishness as astutely, mercilessly and affectionately as Claire Powell, and her latest novel,... Read more »
John Lanchester, author I find it hard to read contemporary fiction while I’m in the middle of writing a novel, so I use the time after finishing as an opportunity to catch... Read more »
Paul, Guardian reader I’ve been reading a very short book by Claire Baglin, translated by Jordan Stump, On the Clock. Set on the edge of somewhere in Brittany, all run-down blocks, dual... Read more »
Tomasz, Guardian reader Ever since my father presented me with a copy of The Unicorn, beautifully translated into my mother tongue, I have been an ardent admirer of Iris Murdoch’s. I went... Read more »
Geoff Dyer, author I finally got round to Thoreau’s Journal. It is determinedly down-to-earth and soaring, lyrical and belligerent, humane and cantankerous. Walt Whitman thought Thoreau suffered from “a very aggravated case... Read more »
Benjamin Myers, writer Erik Satie Three Piece Suite by Ian Penman is a daring and endlessly inventive portrait of the iconoclastic composer. Penman’s skill lies in his total disregard for tired cliches... Read more »
Rachel Clarke, author and physician I’ve just mainlined Rebecca Solnit’s latest collection of essays, No Straight Road Takes You There, in two sittings. It’s such a stirring, sinewy antidote to despair that... Read more »