Book Reviews
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Book ReviewsGhettoside by Jill Leovy
Ghettoside, that wonderful neologism, forms the title of this dark and murderous LA noir. The only problem being that it’s 100% real. LA Times reporte... Read more »| 27 Feb 2015 -
Book ReviewsPush: Best of the First 10 Issues edited by Joe England
The first 10 issues of the litzine Push are collected here and given a wonderful, inflamatory introduction by The Football Factory author John King. It acts ... Read more »| 12 Feb 2015 -
Book ReviewsThe Myth of Brilliant Summers by Austin Collings
Austin Collings’s collection of short stories spans imaginary child murders, the inertia of hopeless job seeking and the mundaneness of teenage boyhood... Read more »| 10 Feb 2015 -
Book ReviewsA Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
There’s nothing vainglorious in this, the Pulitzer Prize winner’s latest. It's a very American thing: there’s Abby and Red Whitshank, ... Read more »| 03 Feb 2015 -
Book Reviews
The Longest Fight by Emily Bullock
Set against the backdrop of gritty post-war London, The Longest Fight tells the story of former boxer Jack Munday. As a teenager, Jack had no optio... Read more »| 02 Feb 2015 -
Book Reviews
My Dear Bessie by Chris Barker and Bessie Moore, edited by Simon Garfield
We’ve had a glimpse of this captivating love story before. A scant selection of the wartime letters between Chris Barker and Bessie Moore were interlea... Read more »| 02 Feb 2015
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Book Reviews
The First Bad Man by Miranda July
Cheryl Glickman, lead lady in indie filmmaker Miranda July's debut novel, bumbles through life as a chaotic bundle of neurotic ticks and bad habits. A lot of... Read more »| 30 Jan 2015 -
Book Reviews
In Real Life by Chris Killen
In Real Life opens with a pro-con list devoid of positives. Killen's second novel quickly starts to resemble something similar. Here's Paul, a lazily assembl... Read more »| 15 Jan 2015 -
Book Reviews
Euphoria by Lily King
We start with an ominous shape, a pale brown thing being thrown at a canoe. The shape may be a baby, discarded by the murderous Mumbanyo tribe, but our prota... Read more »| 05 Jan 2015 -
Book ReviewsBehind God's Back by Harri Nykänen
A businessman gets shot on his doorstep in Helsinki one morning, and this apparently simple homicide lights up a web of connections and corruption that leads... Read more »| 02 Jan 2015 -
Book Reviews
The Alphabet of Birds by S. J. Naudé
SJ Naudé's short story collection The Alphabet of Birds tells tales of the South African diaspora, of people hurled from home and scattered across the... Read more »| 31 Dec 2014 -
Book Reviews
Wolf Winter by Cecila Ekbäck
Rather than being a translation, Cecilia Ekbäck’s debut was written in English straight off, but the rhythm can feel as if someone has Tippex... Read more »| 30 Dec 2014 -
Book Reviews
Crow Bait by Douglas Skelton
A gory and razor-sharp crime novel from the start, Douglas Skelton’s Crow Bait moves at breakneck speed like a getaway car on the dark streets of Glasg... Read more »| 08 Dec 2014 -
Book Reviews
Amnesia by Peter Carey
Peter Carey is one of the few writers you could expect to pull off a sprawling tale about hackers, global capitalism and Australian politics. He’s got ... Read more »| 04 Dec 2014 -
Book Reviews
N0S 4R2 by Joe Hill
All books are page-turners by default, how else might they be read? But it’s the velocity of turning which provides some sort of measure. N0S 4R2 lives... Read more »| 03 Dec 2014