For those expecting a Natalie Portman thirst trap, sorry to disappoint you. For those expecting a coruscating take down of modern fame, sorry to disappoint you. For those expecting a book to replace The Odyssey as the ‘book de jour’, sorry to disappoint y…

In 1939, an Austrian 19-year-old named Hermine Braunsteiner accepted a job as a prison guard in Germany with the hopes of sending more money to her family back home. A decade later, she is known as ‘The Mare’ and is renowned for the brutal violence she en…

In a not-so-far-away future with smart houses, self-stocking fridges, and a society policed by an omnipresent institution called ‘The Grid’, we meet Scout, a Roomba vacuum cleaner who longs for human connection. Scout, along with other sentient appliances…

Although slavery officially became illegal in the United States in 1865, prejudice didn’t end. The world for people of colour changed, but it wasn’t a “new world”—a fact acknowledged in the title of Sebastian Barry’s masterful new novel. It’s a tale narra…

Peter Swanson scored a hit with his previous Christmas tale of murder and mayhem, ‘The Christmas Guest’, and he’s laced his latest literary eggnog with just the right amount of the hard stuff. It concerns Nicholas Child, a struggling mystery writer, who i…

This is the third in William Boyd’s Gabriel Dax series of novels, and like the first two, it doesn’t disappoint. Dax is a travel writer-cum-accidental spy who was co-opted into Britain’s Special Intelligence Service by the enigmatic Faith Green. Along the…

Journey to Nowhere – Shiva Naipaul – Publ. by Outsider Editions - £18.99 If often feels like Shiva Naipaul, maybe in his own mind, is the only truth-teller left during his investigation into the Jonestown massacre, Journey to Nowhere, a brand-new editi…

There’s definitely a great novel to be written about a serial killer and their day-to-day existence (I mean to say, how much of their time can serial killing take up? A fraction of a percent?). Sadly, ‘The Art of Getting Hammered’ isn’t it. Our anti-hero …

I’m quite partial to protagonists who unravel in the most spectacular ways, and with ‘Dad Had a Bad Day’, Ashton Politanoff has given us a real doozy in the shape of Ned. Ned has recently lost his job and spends much of his time looking after his six-year…

This breezy slice of autofiction—which has echoes of works by authors such as Rachel Cusk—sees a writer shacking up in Paris. He’s in a part of the city far removed from the picture-postcard version beloved of ‘Emily in Paris’ or Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight i…

Edwidge Danticat, author of ‘Claire of the Sea Light’, is back with her first novel in over ten years. Dèy is about Magnolia, a Haitian American who works in real estate and has built a life with her husband and young daughter in Miami. She is caught in a…

There’s much to enjoy about this novel from a first-time author, but it does have one serious flaw, which I will get to later. Alicia Upano was born and raised in Hawaiʻi, and that’s where her novel begins—specifically Hilo on the eastern coast. It concer…

In what comedian John Robins dubs his ‘alcobiography’, he examines his life through the twelve drinks that have shaped him and his relationship with alcohol. Among them, there’s the first ‘stubby’ he tried as a scout, which sparked a romanticism for drink…

There’s a killer stalking the streets of Tyneside, but do their “victims” actually want to die? Is ‘The Angel of Death’—as the tabloids are quick to dub them—actually offering a service; a kind of off-book assisted dying scheme for the terminally ill? But…

‘Underdogs’ is the debut novel from Middlesbrough writer Louise Powell, and it captures life on the fringes, particularly among those drawn to the ‘flapping’—or independent greyhound racing—community. Reg is up to his eyes in red letters, but he hopes to…

People are outsiders for all sorts of reasons: class, sexual orientation, political status, but for Polly Barton’s anonymous narrator in What Am I, A Deer? it’s a little more complicated. Outwardly successful, inwardly wondering whether she will always be…

I got two klaxon alerts on reading this debut novel. The gist of the story is that Clare and Phoebe’s relationship is under severe strain when Clare miscarries their baby girl. They up sticks to the countryside (after left a relation’s house in a will), h…

“PG danced a kind of four-step around Jerome’s legs as he phoned his secretary to cancel an invitation to a warlock.” This wonderful novel – first published in 1965 – is tumbling with such sentences, and I hope this reprint from the redoubtable Faber Edit…

Mallory Maddox is an author who, following her wildly successful debut novel, has been stuck in writer’s no-man’s land for years. Her peers used to rave about her talent; now they call her ‘Meek Mal’ owing to her inability to follow through and her stay i…

This ambitious slice of science fiction dystopia deftly balances issues surrounding severe climate breakdown with Deb Olin Unferth’s signature sharp wit. The novel is set on a severely depopulated Earth, sometime in the future, with humanity splintering. …

Following the massive success of novels such as ‘The Marriage Portrait’ and ‘Hamnet’, Maggie O’Farrell returns with a sweeping, multi-viewpoint historical epic set in Ireland. The action begins in 1865, roughly a decade after the devastation of the Great …

Irish writer Paul Murray catapults us right into the centre of a family drama in this novel. The Barnes family are on the cusp of their demise. Dickie Barnes is still grieving the death of his younger brother while facing the closure of the family busines…

So yeah? Yeah? Hugh works for this company in Berlin whose virtual head honcho madman/genius has bought a planet just like earth, only problem is there’s no safe way to travel to it. Hugh’s problem is exactly that problem too, and he fears his space race …

What does the Pacific Northwest produce in the 1970s? Well, among other things, serial killers and serial amounts of deadly pollution. In Murderland, Caroline Fraser suggests that these two facts are not unrelated. “Recipes for making a serial killer may …

Adele Bertei’s memoir isn’t a comprehensive history of the women who played a huge part in the culture of No Wave, but a series of extraordinary snapshots that become a very satisfying whole over this book’s wonderful three hundred pages. Adele Bertei arr…

When George Michael died – nearly ten years ago now – a slew of stories came out about his generosity (he was once watching ‘Deal or No Deal’ on TV, and when a woman didn’t win the £15,000 she hoped, for IVF treatment, Michael gave her the money with the …

In Famesick, writer, actor, and creator of the critically acclaimed television show ‘Girls’ reflects on the 17 years she has lived (often controversially) in the limelight, and the side effects of fame that she was too young to comprehend. Whether it’s an…

India, 2013. Ved has just turned 13 and he lives with his non-biological father – the titular ‘Da’. The pair share a fierce bond – full of tenderness and affection – but it also becomes apparent that ‘Da’ is gay. Ved, who narrates the tale with all the na…

Unlike several of her recent novels, which centred on the recurring characters of Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge, the latest from Elizabeth Strout is a stand-alone work that captivates right from the off. The story follows Artie Dam, a high school histo…

Thai writer Pitchaya Sudbanthad is a master at weaving timelines and characters together in this debut novel. It’s a cocktail of historical, science, and climate fiction which sees stories from characters across centuries linked by their relationship to t…

The debut novel from this Uruguayan novelist (translated by Miriam Tobin) is a compelling addition to the New Latin American Gothic genre. Set in the fictional town of Paso Chico, the story concerns Marga, a 13-year-old girl who lives with her grandmother…

Simon Goddard’s latest in his series of brilliant Bowie biogs is set in 1976, when Britain’s long hot summer brought racial tensions to the boil helped by the lies of Enoch Powell and the idiocy of rock stars like Eric Clapton and David Bowie (among other…

Somewhere at the start of this great “anti-memoir”, there’s a line about addiction which is a reminder that bad stuff in the world could be sorted if there was a will to sort it, “The problem with prevention is that it would require a full-scale revolutio…

Agnes Martin (1912-2004) was a Canadian-American painter known for her minimalist abstracts. She did her most famous work while living rather reclusively in the desert environment of New Mexico – in a house she built herself. She never expressed her sexua…

In this follow-up to her highly acclaimed 2017 novel ‘Butter’, Asako Yuzuki is back with another dark story (translated by Polly Barton). ‘Hooked’, like ‘Butter’, is set in Tokyo and revolves around two thirty-year-old women: Eriko is a highly strung perf…

On the coast of present-day Ireland, a family gather to mourn the death of their long-estranged father (or, in the case of Vyonne, her ex-husband). There’s the teen daughter and son, Gemma and Matthew, who are trying to figure out their place in the world…

Scottish-based author Tariq Ashkanani was responsible for one of the best thrillers of 2025 with ‘The Midnight King’ – a twisty (and twisted) new take on the serial killer genre – and he’s followed it up with another doozy. Just as he did with ‘The Midnig…

The titular Anna in Tracy Maton’s sizzling debut thriller has never known the good life. She grew up in an unstable environment where drink, drugs and then – when she hit her twenties – dead-end jobs were the norm. But when she meets Ben, the two become a…

‘This is Also a Love Story’ sees Sally Hayden reflect on her career as an international correspondent to ask, ‘Might the world be a different place if we more regularly told news stories through the prism of love?’ She explores the light she saw in some o…

A book that smells of male sweat, male privilege, barrooms, drug-dens, music venues and cigarette smoke. I’m not sure I liked What Do You Do When You Are Lonely, mainly because I’m not sure I liked Justin Townes Earle very much, which isn’t Jonathan Berns…

The fiery age-gap, on again, off again relationship first seen in The Lesser Bohemians has taken a sombre, yet no less intense turn in Eimear McBride’s follow-up novel, The City Changes Its Face. Stephen and Eily are still in love, but are still battling …

It’s little wonder that Emma Glass’s ‘mrs jekyll’, which totally dismantles and rebuilds the Robert Louis Stephenson classic, was nominated for the Gordon Burn Prize, because it’s a wholly original, boundary-pushing piece of work. It concerns a schoolteac…

This new novel from novelist and journalist John Lanchester (‘Capital’) is narrated through the perspectives of two women. Kate is a devoted wife who is grieving the death of her perfect husband Jack, their thirty-year marriage and the secret language the…

Dilara lives in modern day Italy. She and her family are exiled from Turkey, largely because of the authoritarian regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who has reordered society along religious lines. When Dilara becomes aware that her father is suffering from d…

I love a thriller and ‘Catch!’ was a real curve-ball for me – quite literally. That’s because it involves Dani, an Italian who is due to play the games of his life in the baseball World Series in the US. Meanwhile, his mother, Roberta, who runs a laundry …

Siân Hughes was Booker-longlisted for her debut novel ‘Pearl’ and I expect ‘No Such Thing As Monday’ to be similarly lauded. It’s the present day in the West Midlands. Steffie – a 50-something woman – arrives at Stanley’s house (Stanley being her father) …

Art Cure has recently been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-fiction, and after reading it, I can’t say I’m surprised. Armed with decades of research and a passion for the arts, award-winning scientist Daisy Fancourt shares touching case studies wh…

The rumours are that white male writers are becoming extinct, but the reality is that rumours of their extinction have been greatly exaggerated. Take David Szalay. White and male and privately educated and Oxbridge and, phew, a Booker Prize winner! The fu…

I wouldn’t describe myself as a David Keenan fanboy and if this comment makes me persona non grata to the Memorial Device nation, well, I’m sorry, but them’s the breaks. Volcanic Tongue, a compilation of David Keenan’s writings about late 20th century und…

Look, I’m not an expert about women’s art although I’m a fan of The White Pube, Nan Goldin, Jenny Saville, Cindy Sherman, the artists of Women in Revolt etc. Not a total neophyte then, and yet much of the art and many of the women artists mentioned in Lou…

Swiss writer Michelle Steinbeck made a splash with her debut novel ‘My Father Was a Man on Land and a Whale in the Water’ (it was selected as Best Book of the Edinburgh Book Festival in 2019). Her latest (translated by Jen Calleja) begins with a young wom…

Seventeen-year-old Waldo is hungry, and her unexceptional town in Alaska, Post-its from her absent mother, and nightly Shein shopping binges just won’t cut it. Enter Mr Korgy, her new creative writing teacher, whose failed dream to be a writer and married…

Fatima Bhutto has previously been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (for ‘The Shadow of the Crescent Moon’), but this memoir sees her tackling a period of her life (which encompasses the various Covid lockdowns) in which she’s in a relationship…

US author Stefan Merril Block has published three well received novels, and for ‘Home Schooled’ – a memoir of his early years – he’s also taken a novelistic approach. The results are utterly engrossing as he details his life growing up in Texas with his m…