When Emily St John Mandel was a child she had a dream that would stay with her for decades. It was a nightmare in which “I was trying to find my dad... Read more »
For several years I ran community groups that involved reading books aloud with other adults. Sharing the experience of reading in that way made me notice how, when one or more of... Read more »
Massif by Garth Nix (Gollancz, £25)The bestselling fantasy author’s first science fiction novel for adults is set three centuries from now, when humanity has spread out to the stars. The colonisation of... Read more »
What is Taiwan? A former Japanese colony? A centre of the semiconductor industry? A democracy overseen by American imperialism? China’s next military target? An island of Austronesian Indigenous tribes? Is Taipei a cultural emblem... Read more »
Elizabeth Jane Howard’s beloved family saga the Cazalet Chronicles spans three decades in the life of the upper-middle-class Cazalet family. The first four books, written in the 1990s, run from a bucolic... Read more »
There is something farcical – grotesque, even – about life played in reverse. A child falling into a tree. A sandwich emerging from a mouth, bite by reconstituted bite. A doctor unstitching... Read more »
The word “Alzheimer’s” never appears in Switzy, Emma Cline’s third novel, which arrives pre-endorsed as a Booker prize longlistee. But we can be certain that it is the disease afflicting its central... Read more »
The protagonist of Meg Mason’s new book, the follow-up to the 2020 tragicomedy Sorrow and Bliss, is an invisible woman. She might well be standing there but you won’t notice her. She’s... Read more »
“A sense of sweep,” replied Marlon James, when asked what moves him most in literature. “Sweep isn’t just about external journeys, but internal as well. It can be over years and decades,... Read more »