Book Reviews

Can we build ourselves beyond the violence that created us?
Can we build ourselves beyond the violence that created us?
This debut novel by Alice Evelyn Yang, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing, is a historical family saga that weaves together the stories of a village, a lineage, and the monsters... Read more...
The vulnerability of human communities - Paula Sutton’s The Body in the Kitchen Garden
The vulnerability of human communities - Paula Sutton’s The Body in the Kitchen Garden
What makes Paula Sutton's The Body in the Kitchen Garden especially distinctive is the way in which it weaves in elements of feel-good fiction, balancing the mystery with gentle humour,... Read more...
A very promising premise, interrupted: The Idiot by Elif Batuman
A very promising premise, interrupted: The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The Idiot by Elif Batuman follows a young Turkish-American woman, Selin, during her first year at Harvard University in the 90s. Selin is an aloof, somewhat unremarkable character, often letting... Read more...
A place is nothing without its people
A place is nothing without its people
A review of the Book of Bradford  Read more...
Scent, possession, and death in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Scent, possession, and death in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to literally anyone except children. Whatever you normally like to read, put the next book on your TBR aside and pick this one up... Read more...
Place and Person: Exploring Identity in Amanda Smyth’s Look At You
Place and Person: Exploring Identity in Amanda Smyth’s Look At You
Once in, it’s hard to get out of this book, so absorbing is every aspect of Look at You, so tender and personal and rich is the tapestry Amanda Smyth... Read more...
Calling All Complaints! Review of Sara Ahmed's No is Not a Lonely Utterance
Calling All Complaints! Review of Sara Ahmed's No is Not a Lonely Utterance
Sara Ahmed’s No is Not a Lonely Utterance has the potential to generate real change. In a world that is so turbulent and unpredictable, this book is the hope that... Read more...
Becoming Everything: Arundhati Roy and the Art of Happiness and Survival
Becoming Everything: Arundhati Roy and the Art of Happiness and Survival
Reading The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is like having a bird's-eye view of a world so vast that it overflows the limits of the page. And of course, it is... Read more...
Redefining the mother in Saba Sams’s Gunk
Redefining the mother in Saba Sams’s Gunk
words by Jocelyn Howarth   The traditional nuclear family consists of an adult man and woman who are married, and who have at least one child between them. Over the... Read more...
Finding Resilience amidst the Ruins of World War II: A Review of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale
Finding Resilience amidst the Ruins of World War II: A Review of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale
words by Katerina Ouzoni | photo courtesy of The British Library   Much has been said about the new literary masterpiece by acclaimed American author Kristin Hannah—the historical novel The... Read more...
Devotion, denial and the devastation of dying in Hanne Ørstavik’s Ti Amo
Devotion, denial and the devastation of dying in Hanne Ørstavik’s Ti Amo
words by Ellie johnson | photo by Leonardo Cendamo   Despite its brevity, Ti Amo (2020) by Hanne Ørstavik is a work that finds a thousand different ways to say ‘I... Read more...
What would you go to Hell for? Review of R.F. Kuang's Katabasis
What would you go to Hell for? Review of R.F. Kuang's Katabasis
words by Jocelyn Howarth - What is Hell? Or, more specifically, where is Hell? Last week, I realised that Hell for me is the waiting room at the local walk-in... Read more...