Book Reviews
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Book ReviewsFor Faughie's Sake by Laura Marney
Glaswegian Trixie returns in this brilliant sequel to No Wonder I Take A Drink, sick of the mud, midges and cliques of Highland village Inverfaughie. In... Read more »| 05 Jun 2014 -
Book ReviewsLetters of James Agee to Father Flye by James Agee
In one of the later letters of celebrated writer James Agee to his lifelong confidant Father Flye, Agee mentions Montaigne's essay on his near-perfect, myth-... Read more »| 03 Jun 2014 -
Book ReviewsThe Dead Beat by Doug Johnstone
Martha Fluke has just been assigned to the 'dead beat' – the obituaries desk of an Edinburgh newspaper in decline, and her dead father's former pl... Read more »| 02 Jun 2014 -
Book ReviewsThe Last Tiger by Tony Black
The premise at least is intriguing: a family relocates from Lithuania to Tasmania in 1910. The father is a shepherd, but he’s adept at hunting Tasmania... Read more »| 02 Jun 2014 -
Book ReviewsThe Wherewithal by Philip Schultz
Henryk Wyrzykowski, 'Head Clerk of Closed Files' at a San Francisco welfare office, is translating his mother's diaries while evading the Vietnam War. An acc... Read more »| 07 May 2014 -
Book ReviewsThe Quick by Laura Owen
Lauren Owen’s debut novel is an enjoyable and sometimes gripping read, set against the Gothic backdrop of Victorian England. The story begins at a... Read more »| 05 May 2014
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Book ReviewsCaught by Lisa Moore
Lisa Moore turns the law on its head, inviting us to empathise with David Sanely, a criminal on the loose. Her novel Caught is an elaborate cat and mouse cha... Read more »| 05 May 2014 -
Book ReviewsLexicon by Max Barry
Great sci-fi has often traded on the genre’s potential for making abstract ideas real: Philip K Dick made the question of ‘what makes us human?&r... Read more »| 02 May 2014 -
Book ReviewsSally Heathcote: Suffragette by Mary M. Talbot, Kate Charlesworth and Bryan Talbot
The latest venture from Costa Award-winning scholar and graphic novelist duo Mary and Bryan Talbot, Sally Heathcote: Suffragette is a fast-paced romp through... Read more »| 01 May 2014 -
Book ReviewsWho is Tom Ditto? by Danny Wallace
What did Danny Wallace’s Shortlist paymasters think of his swipe here at damagingly aspirational men’s mags?It’s one attempt of many to ske... Read more »| 01 May 2014 -
Book ReviewsLeaving the Sea by Ben Marcus
The human condition is too grand and vague, so Ben Marcus writes about the human disease instead. Many of the characters in these short stories are sick, or ... Read more »| 01 May 2014 -
Book ReviewsFive Came Back by Mark Harris
According to Mark Harris, Frank Capra once made Oscar nominees stand on the stage together before he announced the winner. The five film directors that ... Read more »| 29 Apr 2014 -
Book ReviewsOther People’s Countries: A Journey into Memory by Patrick McGuinness
Far removed from the current trend in celebrity biographies, Patrick McGuinness’ memoir is an unusual and striking foray into the past. The book is a collection of Proustian pieces, varying in length from a paragraph to a few pages Read more »| 02 Apr 2014 -
Book ReviewsGutter 10
Scotland’s leading literary magazine has marked its fifth birthday with a new layout, another fine selection of new Scottish writing, and an interview with Alan Bissett Read more »| 02 Apr 2014 -
Book ReviewsBoy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
Boy is a beautiful, contrary young woman who runs away from her abusive rat-catcher father in New York and ends up at the end of the line in Flax Hill, an idyllic town where everyone is a specialist – whether that be in cake-making, jewellery or teaching Read more »| 02 Apr 2014