So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman
By . Published 26 January 2012
Cara Hoffman’s debut novel follows the disappearance of Wendy White, a teenage waitress in the small rural town of Haeden, New York. In a town where everyone knows everybody, case...
Books > Reviews
Edinburgh Street Furniture by David Brandon
By . Published 26 January 2012Edinburgh Street Furniture is an informative guide to the capital’s landmarks and streets. Fittingly, it’s written by historian David Brandon who knows plenty about the city so who better to...
The Last Holiday by Gil Scott-Heron
By . Published 25 January 2012The Last Holiday is a deeply personal, if self-conscious, telling of Gil Scott-Heron’s life. The writer and musician’s early life is described from a witty, sensitive angle. The clash between...
Exile by Jakob Ejersbo
By . Published 24 January 2012Exile is set in Tanzania in the late 1980s and follows the late teenage years of Samantha, a second generation ex-pat. Packed off to an international boarding school by her...
Poems of Youth and Turbulence by Peter G Mackie
By . Published 15 December 2011This collection is one of poems written by Peter G Mackie between 1969 and 1984. He was a youth at the time – the collection spans his work between his...
The Boys: The Big Ride by Garth Ennis, Russ Braun, Darick Robertson and John McCrea
By . Published 15 December 2011The Boys is author Garth Ennis’s attempt to, in his words, "Out-Preacher Preacher." If you haven’t read his earlier Preacher comics, suffice to say that this means it’s violent, gruesome,...
Body of Work, Edited by Giles Foden
By . Published 15 December 2011Body of Work is a celebration of 40 years of the creative writing course at the University of East Anglia. It’s important to note the word celebration here; this isn’t...
Scotland The Best 2012 by Peter Irvine
By . Published 15 December 2011Scotland the Best is a guide to travelling around, or simply living in Scotland, as it rates restaurants, cafes, hotels, pubs, regular events and a whole lot else besides throughout...
One Model Nation by Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Jim Rugg
By . Published 02 December 2011Author Courtney Taylor-Taylor is a member of The Dandy Warhols, and so it’s appropriate that his debut graphic novel is the story of a band. This band are the titiular...
Bye Bye Babylon by Lamia Ziade
By . Published 23 November 2011This is a book that starts with a contention that seems unusual to our ears: Beirut in the 1970s is a paradise. Author Lamia Ziade was 7 years old in...
Charley's War: Hitler's Youth by Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun
By . Published 23 November 2011Charley’s War was a seminal comic strip which followed Charley Bourne, a young soldier, throughout the whole of the First World War. This collected edition of a series of editions...
One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina
By . Published 23 November 2011Binyavanga Wainaina grew up in Kenya, but his mother was Ugandan, and this makes a difference that most European readers wouldn’t assume at first. But he’s willing to educate the...
Atrocitology by Matthew White
By . Published 31 October 2011The premise of Atrocitology seems morbid, at the very least. Author Matthew White has compiled a list of humanity’s 100 deadliest ‘achievements’, ranked by death toll. But he has a...
Killing the Messenger by Christopher Wallace
By . Published 27 October 2011Mental health as a vote-winning issue might stretch the most overactive of imaginations, but that’s the premise behind Killing The Messenger. Dr Greig Hynd’s success in preaching the gospel of positive mental...
Work! Consume! Die! by Frankie Boyle
By . Published 26 October 2011Frankie Boyle’s new book is a curious mixture of the expected harsh humour with social commentary and fiction. The book is a series of chapters of Frankie’s views on various...
The Glamour Chase by Tom Doyle
By . Published 25 October 2011First published a year after Billy Mackenzie’s suicide in 1997, the 2011 edition of The Glamour Chase contains a Foreword written by Björk (described as Mackenzie’s ‘twin musical spirit’), which...
Ragnarok: The End of the Gods by AS Byatt
By . Published 22 September 2011One of the most distinguished contributors to Canongate's 'Myths' series, AS Byatt has long been fascinated by the nihilistic glamour of Ragnarok, where, in a maelstrom of savagery and violence,...
Gioconda by Lucille Turner
By . Published 22 September 2011Gioconda – a study of the life of Leonardo da Vinci – is a first novel by Lucille Turner, imagining thelife of the artist, from his humble beginnings as a...
Good Offices by Evelio Rosero
By . Published 22 September 2011Evelio Rosero won his first literary award in 1979, and it would come as no surprise if he were given another honour for new novel Good Offices. Set in Rosero’s...
The Darkest Walk, by Malcom Archibald
By . Published 22 September 2011The workers are revolting – and not just because they haven’t had a wash. Insurrection is in the air, and only one man can save the respectable classes from 'the...
