Could Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear be the first great tradwife novel? This was my hope: finally, a literary response to the unhinged social trend of women cosplaying “traditional Christian values” – pronatalism and... Read more »
Jon Doyle’s debut novel tells the story of Mack O’Brien, a young man who went to a seminary to study for the priesthood but was asked to leave because he had no... Read more »
What happens when a novelist cares more about their plot, or their message, than their prose? Plot and message have this much in common: they travel smoothest on the lubricating oil of... Read more »
What would Marcus Aurelius have made of the Kardashians? Would Seneca have been amused by mindfulness apps? These were questions I had never consciously pondered before reading Maria Semple’s new novel. Neither,... Read more »
My earliest reading memoryThe Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss, particularly the little red fan the cat holds in the tip of its tail. At the age of five, I was reading The Famous... Read more »
Loss Protocol by Paul McAuley (Gollancz, £22)In a Britain racked by the effects of climate change, about 50 years from now, Marc Winters’ quiet life as a ranger on a nature reserve... Read more »
Wayne Koestenbaum has built himself a slow-burn reputation as one of America’s sharpest queer iconoclasts, but the title of his latest novel suggests Netflix-ready realism. Will My Lover, the Rabbi be a... Read more »
Upward Bound is a dismal adult daycare centre in the Los Angeles suburbs, with “poop-coloured” walls and a small swimming pool out the back. The name on the sign is cruelly misleading... Read more »
This gothic-inflected saga has received much attention in Europe for its quirky and confident take on 20th-century Hungarian history. It is sobering to reflect that its author not only has no personal memory... Read more »