Book Reviews

An Unforgettable Debut: Cosmos by Lucia Odoom
An Unforgettable Debut: Cosmos by Lucia Odoom
It is remarkable how much Lucia Odoom is able to accomplish in such few pages. Cosmos is this author’s moving and memorable debut, originally written in Danish, and translated to... Read more...
Is it better to Speak or to Die? Sara Collins on Legacy, Love, and Lies
Is it better to Speak or to Die? Sara Collins on Legacy, Love, and Lies
The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins is as thematically complex as its titular main character. Part mystery-thriller, historical pseudo-memoir and literary fiction, Confessions is a gothic-soaked exploration of... Read more...
The places that make us in Halldór Laxness' 'A Parish Chronicle'
The places that make us in Halldór Laxness' 'A Parish Chronicle'
words by Inés Paris Arranz A Parish Chronicle by Halldór Laxness is not an easy read, for such a short novel; its circular structure and thematic fixation challenge the modern... Read more...
The Cost of Inheritance: Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Long Island Compromise
The Cost of Inheritance: Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Long Island Compromise
WORDS BY ANNIE CARTY   There is a dybbuk in Long Island Compromise. In Jewish folklore, a dybbuk is a restless spirit condemned to linger among the living and cause... Read more...
Money, Masculinity and Misery in 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying'
Money, Masculinity and Misery in 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying'
Best known for creating brutal dystopias and criticising dictatorship, fewer people are aware of Orwell’s more ‘mundane’ works. Set in the grimy backdrop of prewar London, Keep the Aspidistra Flying centres... Read more...
The Curse and Blessing of Being Human
The Curse and Blessing of Being Human
He Used To Do Dangerous Things is a collection of short stories by Gaia Holmes that interrogates the countless experiences that make up human existence. Holmes blends the grittiness of... Read more...
Life is a Cage and Death Holds the Key
Life is a Cage and Death Holds the Key
words by Jocelyn Howarth   D. H. Lawrence explored the theme of existentialism across three short stories, through three different characters: a woman who abandons her life as a wife... Read more...
Living in the Margins of the Body, Society, and Literature: 'Easy Read' by Cristina Morales
Living in the Margins of the Body, Society, and Literature: 'Easy Read' by Cristina Morales
Easy Read by Cristina Morales is, without a doubt, a title that could not be further from the truth. The irony is immediate and deliberate: this is not a text... Read more...
Swimming in Paris: Clear Waters & Hidden Currents
Swimming in Paris: Clear Waters & Hidden Currents
Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories, or The Paris Trilogy, title depending on whether you sport a British accent or an American one, is a long overdue English... Read more...
Chasing the Sun with Stuart Murdoch’s 'Nobody’s Empire'
Chasing the Sun with Stuart Murdoch’s 'Nobody’s Empire'
Imagine yourself: perfectly healthy, living a regular life. Perhaps moving without a specific direction, not chasing everything you’re truly passionate about. But still, a normal, compact life, with hobbies, work,... Read more...
'Butter' and the Politics of Female Appetite
'Butter' and the Politics of Female Appetite
There are novels that ask to be read quietly, almost cerebrally, and there are novels that insist on entering the body. Butter by Asako Yuzuki belongs emphatically to the latter. It... Read more...
Nina McConigley's novel How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder
Cause of Death: British Colonialism and a Bottle of Antifreeze
Nina McConigley's How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is a novel that does exactly what it says on the tin. Never has a title been more apt, nor more effective... Read more...