book reviews and features
Omar Robert Hamilton: The City Always Wins review - Egypt's revolution, up close and personal![]()
A few days ago we learned that British taxpayers have unwittingly donated around £1m. in aid to the police and court systems of Egypt’s military dictatorship, via an opaque “Conflict, Stability... Read more... |
Fred Vargas: The Accordionist review - intriguing Gallic sleuthing yarn![]()
The two haunting series of crime ... Read more... |
James Hamilton: Gainsborough - A Portrait review - an artistic life told with verve and enthusiasm![]()
James Hamilton’s wholly absorbing biography is very different from the usual kind of... Read more... |
Jason Webster: Fatal Sunset review - more flavoursome crime in Valencia
The sixth in a series of crime... Read more... |
Emma Dibdin: 'Being scared of something is a sign you should write about it'![]()
When I began writing my first novel four years ago, there were a few ideas that had coalesced in my mind. I... Read more... |
Teju Cole: Blind Spot review - haunting hybrid of words and images![]()
As a photographer, Teju Cole has a penchant for the scuffed and distressed surfaces, materials and tools that form rectilinear patterns on construction sites. Opposite a shot of scaffolding,... Read more... |
Lisa Jewell: 'I’d never killed anyone before'
I started writing my first novel in 1995. I was 27 and I’d just come out of a dark, dark marriage to a... Read more... |
h.Club 100 Awards: Publishing and Writing - it's not all about the mainstream![]()
For more than three decades I reported on the publishing industry as a business journalist. The books, the deals, the authors and the publishers, plus the bookshops that sold then. When I started... Read more... |
Peter Høeg: The Susan Effect review - Nordic noir turns surreal![]()
Peter Høeg is still overwhelmingly known for a novel published a quarter of a century ago. Miss Smilla’s... Read more... |
Sarah Hall: Madame Zero review – eerie tales of calamity and change![]()
Five thousand miles away from her native Lake District, I first understood the eerie magnetism of Sarah Hall’s fiction. As a regional judge for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, I’d travelled to... Read more... |
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