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 [...]
Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas
Scarlett Thomas has got a fair bit of crap for this book from readers. It doesn’t appear to read as the same hand as the wonderful “The End of Mr. Y”. It’s awkwardly written, and incredibly long. It’s chaotic, and hasn’t [...]
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
There is a temptation to label this book a “cosy mystery”, given it is about small-town murder. But this study of tightly-coiled female energy between three women, a mother and two sisters from a dysfunctional Old South family, disqualifies it from [...]
Every Day is Mother’s Day by Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel’s interests, apart from the Tudors, include ghosts and the haunted. She also used to be a social worker. This mix is brought together in a weird semi-autobiographical plot involving four characters and their reactions to a haunted house, and [...]
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
An unnamed female protagonist talks through her journey to find out what has happened to her father, who lives, and has gone missing, in the far northern wilds of Canada. Instead of going alone, she’s made the flippant decision to take [...]
Lanny by Max Porter
A surprisingly English book. Lanny is the unusual boy who lives with his parents in the village. But Dead Papa Toothwart, a shapeshifting ancient woodland spirit watches the boy, and the village. This book almost shouldn't be reviewed, and I myself [...]
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Oyinkan Braithwaite's debut novel is all fizz and pulp in the chick reads section, and yet it also bubbles with a bloody humour that lifts it out into its own hybrid of Nigerian comedy and crime. The perils of sisterhood are [...]
Paradise by AL Kennedy
Paradise is the confessional of Hannah, an alcoholic whose time-slips and blackouts have made her job as a fruit box saleswoman impossible. She loses her company car and job, and sets about getting drunk yet again. The book opens with Hannah [...]
Diary of an Oxygen Thief by Anonymous
It is impossible to know if this book is literally a confessional of someone who then published as fiction, because the author remains unknown. The hype that follows this book is intense, and continues today even after ten years, and will [...]
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
Written just after 9-11, and as a writer in love with his city, DeLillo continues his ode to New York with this book, based around the life of a young rich businessman Eric Packer as he gets stuck in various traffic [...]