Review: Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch
It’s been a fair while between drinks for Donna Tartt. Her previous novel, The Little Friend, came out in 2002; The Goldfinch, her latest (and, as I will argue below, certainly her greatest to...
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Review: Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book
“Even true stories have to be invented sometimes to be remembered…” The winner of Australia’s premier literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award, was announced last week – it went to Evie...
In Favour of YA: Why Adults Shouldn’t Feel Embarrassed to Read Children’s Literature
Oh look, yet another article trashing YA, its authors, and its readers. It must be a day ending in Y. This time, it’s on Slate, where writer Ruth Graham smugly insists that adults who read young...
Review: Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.” (Albert Camus) Karen Joy Fowler is a writer that I thought I had not encountered before reading her most recent novel, We Are All...
Tumblr of the Day: Cats Contemplating Capital
For the Leftie in your life, a tumblr that pairs cats contemplating French economist Thomas Piketty's recent intellectual blockbuster Capital in the Twenty First Century, which has influentially...
Tumblr of the Day: Neruda Cats
Does what it says on the tin: the sensuous, lyrical poetry of Pablo Neruda, with pictures of cats. Set it in the new context of the cat memes, Neruda's poetry becomes extremely silly, even...
Miles Franklin Awards 2014: A longlist overview
The longlist for Australian’s biggest literary award, the Miles Franklin, was announced on 3 April, and it’s quite an interesting list as lists go. It comprises the following 11 titles: Tracy...
The many faces of loss: This year’s Nebula Awards Short Story Nominees
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) have announced the nominee list for the annual Nebula Awards, and, as usual, it’s got some strong points of interest. There’s an...
The Etisalat Prize: Shortlist review
The winner of the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature will be announced any day now. The Etisalat, a new prize for debut novelists from Africa, offers a modest cash award (£15,000) along with a...
On the Under-rated Novelist Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson is, to my mind, one of the more undervalued writers of the last 25 years in English language fiction. Oh, sure, she has a big fan base in the UK in particular, and her books sell well,...