Rendition of a Life, Transposed
People sometimes ask, for fun at a bar, or boredom on a long journey, a silly question. “Gun to the head – Lose your sight or lose your hearing?” My answer was always hearing. I can live without bad music in [...]
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
A grimy New York book is always a winner, and here Moshfegh takes the lethargy and defeatism of twentieth century East Coast living and rolls it up into her protagonist, a nameless, monied female narrator on the cusp of George W's [...]
The Electric Jesus
Somewhere in the deepest level of Hell there is an infernal machine churning out positive affirmations, uplifting sentences, wise sayings and motivational outpourings. Serried ranks of demons then attach them to various images rendered at 72 dots per inch, including, but [...]
Electric Order by Armani Martel
Electric Order, winner of the 2017 Baum Book Prize, holds no punches in its startling and unique vision of the future. The prologue has a razor-sharp hook that will grip you from the very start. Set in a future not too far [...]
The Folly of Sweeney by Brian O’Sullivan
The machinations of a fractured mind can make for great literature, and in The Folly of Sweeney by Brian J. O’Sullivan, readers get a raw glimpse into a truly unusual brain. Touching on elements of the immigrant experience, mental health, alcoholism, [...]
Jake, Lucid Dreamer by David J. Naiman
Jake, Lucid Dreamer by David J. Naiman is a charming look at a middle-schooler’s struggle to navigate grief and acceptance. With a touch of the surreal, Naiman has woven a fantastical tale with a powerful message about learning to face your [...]
The Map and The Territory by Michel Houellebecq
The Map and The Territory is a pastiche in the true sense of the word. Using Wikipedia, maps, quotes, and works of art – and even a fictional version of himself, playing himself – Houellebecq’s fifth novel nearly got him into [...]
The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion
Joan Didion, if you are not familiar, is a challenging sort of fiction read. Simply put, she makes her own awkward rules, which for the most part, work perfectly. But don't expect to understand them the first time around. Writing fiction [...]
Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller
The day I finished reading this book I rounded a corner at Liberty at the back of Picadilly and nearly ran slap bang into the actor Bill Nighy wrapped in an expensively tight suit and French-tied scarf. He was a lot [...]
Trip by Tao Lin
Tao Lin is either a complete genius or a complete sham. Having spent a few hours looking at videos on YouTube of him presenting his childlike scribbles to a roomful of New York's finest literati -- who chuckle along not sure [...]