“The Dig is astounding. It is one of the most powerful novels I have read in a very long time. Intense, raw, sometimes brutal, it is a perfect corrective to our notion of the rural idyll. It is a very short novel that feels vast and broad because of its mythic quality. I would never…
Posted on 19th June 2014
Posted on 19th September 2012
Chattering
Astute and starkly visceral, Chattering marks American visual artist Louise Stern’s debut into the literary scene with a collection of vivid tales depicting the various escapades, trials and tribulations of assorted young adults across the globe. Her motley characters roam from lonely riverside haunts in London to sun-kissed Brazilian beaches and gritty back-alley clubs in…
Posted on 20th September 2011
Shipley Reading Group reads Nimrod’s Shadow
Nimrod’s Shadow is a thoroughly readable and engrossing book with a dual plot and a limited number of major characters. These characters are portrayed wonderfully well and are entirely believable. They drive the story along marvellously well.
Posted on 4th May 2011
Night Waking
One insomniac son obsessed with The Gruffalo, another with reducing his family’s carbon footprint, an book to finish on the Romantic view of childhood (they celebrated innocence while committing ever more children to orphanages and prisons), and a puffin-scientist husband with a knack for leaving the room just when nappies must be changed and children…
Posted on 22nd October 2010
Fiction Uncovered by… Ollie Brock, Online Editor, Granta
Michèle Lesbre, a former schoolteacher, apparently wrote detective novels before turning to literary fiction in 2001. It didn’t take her long to climb the ranks: her 2007 novel, Le canapé rouge, was a finalist for France’s prestigious Goncourt prize and has been translated into eight languages — though not, as far as I can see,…
