book reviews and features
| Niall Griffiths: Broken Ghost review - Welsh visions of hope and loss Sunday, 18 August 2019 
 The trend-hopping taste-makers who run British literary publishing have lately decided that “working-class” writing merits a small dole of their precious time and cash. To assess how long this...Read more... | Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World ed. Zahra Hankir review – journalism from the front lines Sunday, 11 August 2019 
 Many of the women in this pioneering collection of essays have faced unimaginable hardship in their pursuit of...Read more... | 
| The Collection: Nina Leger trans. Laura Francis - daring, direct and richly imagined Sunday, 11 August 2019 
 Jeanne – employment, age and appearance unknown, motives unknowable – is building a collection of penises. In street after street, she feigns dizziness; on the inevitable approach of a man eager...Read more... | Rachel DeLoache Williams: My Friend Anna review - a fraudster for the Instagram age? Tuesday, 06 August 2019 
 Of all the ventures that super-fraudster Anna Delvey might have chosen as bait for her victims, an exclusive...Read more... | 
| Martin Hägglund: This Life - Why Mortality Makes Us Free review - profound book to be read slowly Sunday, 04 August 2019 
 Swedish-born multi-lingual academic Martin Hägglund lives in New York and teaches philosophy and comparative literature at Yale. His new book, This Life, is a substantial examination of secular...Read more... | Vic Marks: Original Spin review - trouble in Taunton Sunday, 21 July 2019 
 In cricket, timing is everything. Played a fraction early and that silky cover drive finds a batsman out to lunch as...Read more... | 
| Gina Apostol: Insurrecto review – a treacherous archipelago of stories Sunday, 14 July 2019 
 As in other countries born out of 19th-century uprisings against imperial power, the literary roots of the Philippines run deep. Executed by the Spanish in 1896, the novelist, poet and physician...Read more... | CD - The Lost Words: Spell Songs Sunday, 07 July 2019 
 Earlier this year, eight musicians – Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever...Read more... | 
| Svetlana Alexievich: Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories review - anything but childish Sunday, 30 June 2019 
 Svetlana Alexievich’s Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories is a collection of oral testimonies conducted between 1978-2004 with...Read more... | Ocean Vuong: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous review – the new avant-garde Sunday, 23 June 2019 
 Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is written as a letter to his mother, who cannot read. She cannot read because...Read more... | 
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