Half a dozen astronauts circle the planet earth from outer space in this odd, rhapsodic novel about a gravity-free voyage in which the travellers see everything – food, water, cutlery, sleep, sex, toilet arrangements, themselves – from a different angle. In many ways, it’s a story about our planet as seen by outsiders. And, also, … More Orbital – Samantha Harvey
The Only Story, Julian Barnes, Vintage It’s the sixties and Paul is back home in Surrey on holiday from university when he meets and starts sleeping with the much older Susan, whose mastery of the tennis court attracts him almost as much as her wit and lithe figure clad in whites. Ironic, damaged and knowing, … More Telling everyone’s story
One of the worst things about long-term illness can be feeling you’re on your own, despite all attempts by well-meaning friends and family to persuade you otherwise. Hilary Mantel understands the isolation only too well, as she shows in Giving up the Ghost. Bodily failure Zoom and social media are, of course, helping; they connect … More Giving up the Ghost
It took Adam Ross more than ten years to write the novel Playworld and little wonder; the 500pp title is a tour de force, offering acute, compassionate and unparalleled insight into the pain so often involved in coming of age. Although the novel is set in 1980s Manhattan, the story has a universality that will … More Playworld – Adam Ross
There were times I was uncomfortably aware of the deeper meaning of Cloud Cuckoo Land eluding me as I was reading it, but I eventually managed to work out what was happening. Roughly, anyway. And ironically, last week we ended up having one of our most successful book club discussions in many months about the title, a story that circles around different stories, all of them eulogies to the book. … More Away with the fairies?
By Nell Fowler Orphaned heroine H spends most of this novel fighting to survive life in 17th century London, making a gutsy if slightly unbelievable protagonist as she battles fire, plague, rape, childbirth, heartache, prostitution and evil, thieving relatives with good humour and vim. The engaging H needs all the courage she can muster when … More Decoding the Strange Adventures of H
Women Talking by Miriam Toews, August 2018, Alfred A. Knopf Women Talking, [15], 2022, director Sarah Polley, scriptwriters Sarah Polley and Miriam Toews In both the film and book of this name, the women do rather more than just talk. Which is good, considering the horrors they’re facing. Yet you can’t help but sympathise deeply … More Women doing rather more than just talk
Nineteenth century London and modern-day Appalachia don’t sound like they have much in common. After all, there’s two hundred years and several thousand miles between them, with different mores, linguistic idioms and politics only heightening the apparent differences. Yet Demon Copperhead shows how suffocating poverty works pretty much the same wherever it occurs, regardless of … More Demon Copperhead’s many houses offer no real home
Helen Fowler Writer 