Books and Fiction

Adrian McKinty: Fifty Grand

9 Jul 2009

Seeking to avenge the death of a father she hardly knew, cop Mercado flees unrelentingly bleak Cuba for the celebrity-filled Colorado ski resort where he was killed in a hit-and-run, his demise covered up with a pay-off to the sheriff. With a luxurious…

Thomas Pynchon: Inherent Vice

9 Jul 2009

Less than half the length of his last 1000-page tome and riffing on the relatively straightforward hardboiled crime genre as opposed to the exhausting literary mash-up of Against the Day, Thomas Pynchon’s seventh novel is the reclusive author’s most…

Chloe Aridjis: Book of Clouds

9 Jul 2009

The Scottish climate comes in for a fair bit of stick but if Book of Clouds is to be believed, there’s more to dreichness than we think. Chloe Aridjis’ Berlin is awash with the wet stuff, from torrential downpours to misty masses. Tatiana is a young…

Chika Unigwe: On Black Sisters’ Street

9 Jul 2009

The depiction of modern prostitution is often one-dimensional, something this skilled new writer is seeking to address. Chika Unigwe is Nigerian-born but now lives in Belgium, the setting for this evocative and heartfelt novel. Four African women share…

Various: Wasted No. 2

9 Jul 2009

More Scottish comic action this fortnight with the second issue of Wasted. Much like its predecessor Northern Lightz, it’s a cheeky selection of comedy shorts from names such as Alan Grant, John Wagner, Jamie Grant, Alan Kerr, Curt Sibling, Dave…

Comics in Scotland: Oxfam Bookfest

9 Jul 2009

Whack! Bang! Wallop! There’s ample reason to don the lycra this fortnight as Oxfam’s Bookfest celebrates comic writing in Scotland. Ferg Hadley (Spiderman, Marvel UK) and Dave Bishop (ex-2000AD and Dr Who) talk comic book writing and graphic novels…

Jane Bussmann - The Worst Date Ever

25 Jun 2009

‘You know you’ve arrived when Britney Spears snubs you and Nicole Richie congratulates you.’ Journalist and comedy writer Jane Bussmann is smiling as she peruses the LA stomping ground, which so mercilessly provides fodder for her memoir, The Worst Date…

Howard Chaykin - American Flagg!

28 May 2009

With a penchant for eroticism and violence, US comics visionary Howard Chaykin is releasing another groundbreaking work. Miles Fielder chats to him.

Jake Arnott: The Devil's Paintbrush

28 May 2009

Moving far away from his London-centric crime tales, Jake Arnott has plundered a chance and highly unlikely meeting between two figures from Britain’s colonial past. The Black Isle-born Hector Macdonald, aka Fighting Mac, was a proud general who fought…

Also Published: 5 Upcoming Novels

28 May 2009

David Peace Occupied City Back home in his native Yorkshire, the Damned United author delivers the second of his Tokyo stories with Japan now in its third year of US occupation. Faber, 6 Aug. Thomas Pynchon Inherent Vice The reclusive scribe…

Chuck Palahniuk: Pygmy

28 May 2009

Having tackled the taboo subject of porn in his last book Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk’s tenth novel sees the controversy-courting author moving onto another no-no topic with this wickedly witty tale of terrorism in the American heartland. A terrorist attack…

Giles Foden: Turbulence

28 May 2009

Giles Foden’s novel opens with the fantastical vision of icebergs being towed from Antarctica to Saudi Arabia for the purpose of watering the Sheikh’s desert. Taking in sea lions trained to detect mines, frissons and debate, the horror and waste of war…

Helen Fitzgerald: My Last Confession

28 May 2009

Glasgow-based Aussie writer Helen Fitzgerald likes to walk a high-wire in her fiction, balancing between the two disparate genres of intelligent chick-lit and dark, violent noir crime writing. In lesser hands it could be a mess, but Fitzgerald always…

Various: Khaki Shorts

28 May 2009

More underground comics action pierces your mind as Khaki Shorts returns after a two-year hiatus. It’s a distinctly Glaswegian title (with just a dash of Edinburgh wit) packed with acidic humour ranging from sci-fi pastiche to police action with…

Margaret Elphinstone: The Gathering Night

14 May 2009

Margaret Elphinstone has carved out a fine career as a purveyor of excellent historical novels, but for her latest offering she’s done something a bit different and gone prehistoric. The Gathering Night is set in Mesolithic Scotland, somewhere between…

Colm Tóibín: Brooklyn

14 May 2009

Times are tough in Enniscorthy, a small job-scarce town in the south-east of Ireland where idle gossip and parish dances are the only entertainment on offer for the young and restless. Instantly likeable leading lady Eilis Lacey’s life is turned upside…

Spirit of Jura

14 May 2009

While various coffee houses of the Scottish capital have taken credit for providing the caffeine-fuelled watershed for JK Rowling’s career, few places have such literary resonance as Jura. The iconic isle was the isolated spot where George Orwell, fresh…

Peter Wild (Ed): Paint a Vulgar Picture: Fiction Inspired by The Smiths

14 May 2009

These short story collections of Peter Wild’s are certainly well designed for grabbing fans’ imaginations. He gets a fistful of contemporary writers to extrapolate from the songs of a particularly iconic band with The Fall and Sonic Youth having…

New British Comics No 1

14 May 2009

New British Comics does exactly what you’d expect by gathering together a selection of up-and-coming comics talent, with a particularly strong Scottish showing. Don’t let the admittedly striking Tim Rees cover fool you: this isn’t superhero or even…

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: State of Grace

16 Apr 2009

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s voice reflects a life split between America and her home country, Nigeria. So while she’ll enunciate each of her words clearly and slowly, she’s also picked up that uniquely American habit of adding a questioning ‘right?’ at…

The Secret of the Black Moon Moth

16 Apr 2009

John Fardell must be responsible for an awful lot of frustrated children at bedtime. Whether they’re being read to, or reading alone, when the end of a chapter signals lights out it’s almost unbearable. King of the cliff-hanger and a master of…

Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette & John Totleben - Saga of the Swamp Thing

16 Apr 2009

COMICS/SUPERHERO There’s no point going over old ground: if you have even the vaguest interest in comics you’ll know of the genius of Alan Moore. Watchmen, V For Vendetta and From Hell are established classics of the medium, as of course is Saga of…

Ben Moor - More Trees to Climb

16 Apr 2009

Comedy and theatre writer Ben Moor isn’t cool. He can’t be described as edgy, cutting or, even on the flipside, geek chic. Too wholesome to be indie, and too intellectual for personal whimsy, Moor’s seemingly fad-free short stories shun the fripperies…

Rebecca Gowers - The Twisted Heart

16 Apr 2009

Kit is a gangly Oxford literature student, immersed in her thesis about the fictionalisation of real-life murders by Victorian authors. To let off steam, she goes to a dance class and meets a mysterious bloke called Joe, embarking on a relationship…

Gillian Philip - Crossing the Line

16 Apr 2009

Fiction for teenagers often tries too hard to protect or lecture its readers, with sanitised characters and everything rounded off into a neat anti-drugs or anti-sex moral. It’s very rare, and exciting, to find a writer like Gillian Philip, who…

John Aberdein - Strip the Willow

16 Apr 2009

The unnervingly familiar Scottish city of Uberdeen faces financial collapse, so multinational powerhouse LeopCorp swoops in to take control. Thus the scene is set for John Aberdein’s astonishing follow-up to award-winning debut Amande’s Bed. Often…

Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neil - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910

16 Apr 2009

From one of Moore’s oldest stories to his latest opus, the first part of the third volume of his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It’s an unlikely ‘superhero’ team of literary characters; in this case, the likes of Raffles, Orlando and Carnaki the…

Wells Tower - Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

2 Apr 2009

(Granta) SHORT STORY COLLECTION Another month, another hotshot North American writer comes our way. With a splurge of fanfare arrives this debut collection from Wells Tower, who has previously contributed to the cult literary likes of McSweeney’s…

James Runcie - East Fortune

2 Apr 2009

(Bloomsbury) FAMILY SAGA Featuring an ensemble cast of characters and set in East Lothian, this tedious novel is trying to be a modern family saga, but fails on almost every level. The story centres on the three Henderson brothers, all…

Benjamin Obler - Javascotia

19 Mar 2009

It may be hard to recall now, but there was a time when coffee shops weren’t over-running the world, and certainly hadn’t even gained a foothold in Scotland. When Benjamin Obler travelled from his native Minnesota in 1994 to study Scottish Literature on…

StAnza 2009 gets off to a fiery start as Robert burns

19 Mar 2009

The launch of StAnza on the evening 19th March in the Byre Theatre, St Andrews was attended by those from seven to seventy. Festival Director Brian Johnstone reminded us of the modest start of StAnza in 1998, the distant Scots diapora was represented by…

Also Published - 5 Debutants

19 Mar 2009

Sara Stockbridge - Hammer The 1980s muse of Vivienne Westwood delivers a novel set in Victorian London about a pickpocket called Grace Hammer. Chatto. Peter Akinti - Forest Gate Two East London teenagers make a suicide pact but when one survives he…

James Lasdun - It's Beginning to Hurt

19 Mar 2009

SHORT STORIES A child is thought kidnapped only to be found playing nearby. A middle-aged man flirts with infidelity only to be consumed by guilt. An unfaithful husband is reprimanded by his wife but only about forgotten groceries. James Lasdun…

Geoff Dyer - Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

19 Mar 2009

EXISTENTIAL TALE Jeff Atman is a middle-aged freelance journalist with a wickedly humorous and cynical outlook on life. We meet him in London, frustrated and world-weary, as he prepares to embark on a press junket to Venice for the Biennale…

CE Morgan - All The Living

19 Mar 2009

RURAL DRAMA Focused on the life of young country girl, Aloma, All the Living is a melancholy depiction of love and family in an oddly timeless and isolated Kentucky farm. CE Morgan’s prose avoids grand descriptions that may befit the epic mountain…

Choke Chain - Jason Donald

19 Feb 2009

‘I found it difficult torturing an eight-year-old boy, but I knew I had to.’ The couple at the table next to Jason Donald shoot him a sideways glance over the top of their coffee cups. He definitely doesn’t seem like the torturing kind. He carries on…

Richard Milward: Tall tale

19 Feb 2009

Bedraggled old residential tower blocks are gradually being demolished in towns and cities across the UK. Yet, young Middlesbrough author Richard Milward has reversed the trend in his own small way, by erecting a sky-high tale from a solid stack of…

Daniel Depp - Loser’s Town

19 Feb 2009

(Simon & Schuster) CRIME DRAMA Daniel Depp’s claim to fame to date is being the half-brother of movie star Johnny and co-writing The Brave, which was nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or prize at Cannes in 1997. As a former Hollywood…

Hitlist - Books

19 Feb 2009

● Jason Donald Born in Dundee and raised in South Africa, Donald came back to Scotland to study creative writing at Glasgow. See the spectacular results at the launch of his debut novel, Choke Chain, a gripping tale of growing up in the threatening…

Dirk Wittenborn - Pharmakon

19 Feb 2009

(Bloomsbury) FAMILY DRAMA Much like the characters within it, Dirk Wittenborn’s third novel defies classification. On the surface, it’s an epic family tale spanning five decades and three generations. One layer down, it’s a taut thriller rich…

Books - Also Published

19 Feb 2009

5 CRIME NOVELS Alex Gray Glasgow Kiss DCI Lorimer opens the file on a schoolteacher accused of rape who then goes missing. ‘The most dynamic Scottish detective since Rebus’ we’re told. Sphere. Natasha Cooper Life on the Edge Psychologist…

Tom Lee - Greenfly

19 Feb 2009

(Harvill Secker) SHORT STORIES The publishers are to be applauded for taking a punt on a debut collection of short stories in these credit-crunched times, but the variable quality contained within these 179 small pages makes it a risk unlikely…

David Moody - Hater

19 Feb 2009

(Orion) HORROR TALE The real story here isn’t one of hate, but of hard work and good fortune. Specifically, that of David Moody himself, the Halesowen author who has been self-publishing online and through print-on-demand for the best part of a…

Robbie Morrison & Henry Flint - Shakara: The Avenger

19 Feb 2009

(2000AD/Rebellion) SCI-FI COMIC You certainly could never accuse writer Robbie Morrison of not starting Shakara on a grand scale, what with the obliteration of Earth in the very first panel and the last ever human being dead by the end of page…

Doug Johnstone

19 Feb 2009

Scottish author/music-maker Doug Johnstone followed his debut Tombstoning with the equally affecting The Ossians, about a young band on a tour of Scotland As the paperback is launched, Johnstone rocks up to talk, drink and play a few tunes made…

Gemma Weekes - Love Me

8 Jan 2009

‘A Big Mac and a hot chocolate please,’ comes the voice down the phone. Gemma Weekes is in McDonalds, ordering lunch, pushing her son’s buggy and doing an interview. I ask if I’m calling at a bad time. ‘No, no,’ she insists, laughing and also…

Alan Grant, John Wagner and Massimo Belardinelli & Ian Gibson - Ace Trucking Co. Vol.1

13 Nov 2008

Born out of the 70s and 80s-mired misapprehension that CB radio talk was the vernacular of the future (let’s blame Burt Reynolds for that), this weekly 2000AD serial nevertheless became one of the British comic’s best for a while. That’s partly down to…

Jack Kilborn - Afraid

13 Nov 2008

Starting with a plane crash and ending with a coyote-on-human chow down, Afraid is a rattling good read for those who have the stomach for it. When a mutant military force turns up unannounced at the friendly law-abiding town of Safe Haven (population…

Hitlist-Books

13 Nov 2008

● Alastair Campbell New Labour’s arch doctor of spin tackles matters concerning real health with his debut novel, All in the Mind, based on his own mental breakdown back in the 1980s. Waterstone’s, Glasgow, Wed 19 Nov. ● Alexei Sayle In the not too…

Gillian Slovo - Black Orchids

13 Nov 2008

Evelyn wishes to be ‘rescued from the boredom of her life’ and it’s in Emil, the beneficiary of a rich Ceylon family, that she finds her non-white knight in shining armour. What seems like an exotic fairy tale in 40s Ceylon, however, is an altogether…

Toni Morrison - A Mercy

13 Nov 2008

In 1993, Toni Morrison became the first (still only) African American author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her ninth novel A Mercy, which addresses the cruel genesis of slavery in early colonial America, arrives as an African American strides…

Also released - 5 Poetry Books

13 Nov 2008

● Vera Brittain Because You Died A collection of poems and prose from the author of Testament of Youth, all about the men she loved who perished in the First World War. Virago. ● Dennis O’Donnell Stepping Stones This one features interviews with…

John Updike - The Widows of Eastwick

30 Oct 2008

For almost half a century, novelist, poet and New Yorker writer John Updike has chronicled the concerns, thoughts and sexual foibles of the American middle class. Not always successfully though, as can be forgiven amidst a career which embraces almost…

Alexander McCall Smith - La's Orchestra Saves the World

30 Oct 2008

When a master of storytelling such as Alexander McCall Smith puts pen to paper, we have come to expect great things. And he doesn't disappoint with this latest stand-alone title, a warm and captivating tale of strength, passion and friendship set in…

Dag Solstad - Novel 11, Book 18

30 Oct 2008

The only three-time winner of the Norwegian Literary Critics Award, Dag Solstad follows up 2006's much praised Shyness and Dignity with this sophisticated, sometimes claustrophobic, representation of a mid-life crisis coming to an extreme end. The plot…

Also published

5 crime paperbacks

30 Oct 2008

Natasha Cooper - A Poisoned Mind Lee Weeks - The Trafficked Xavier Marie Bonnot - The First Fingerprint David Stone - The Orpheus Deception Gavin Esler - A Scandalous Man

Annie Proulx - Fine Just the Way It Is

4 Sep 2008

Fine Just the Way It Is marks Annie Proulx's return to Wyoming, the setting of two previous collections of short stories. The cast is, at once, familiar and fantastic. The devil refurbishes hell, adding to the décor centuries of portraits by mortals…

Janice Galloway interview: full transcript

4 Sep 2008

Transcript of an interview that took place in the residence drawing room of the Scotsman Hotel in Edinburgh on Friday the 22nd of August. Janice Galloway is interviewed about the first volume of her memoirs, This Is Not About Me, which covers her life…

Tibor Fischer - Good to be God

4 Sep 2008

Tyndale Corbett is worried that 'do-gooding, over-forgiving softies' have given religion a bad name. After stealing a friend's identity and fleeing to Miami to escape his dead-end existence, he wants to con a congregation into believing he's God.

Arnaldur Indridason - Arctic Chill

4 Sep 2008

Crime fiction is routinely disregarded by literary types, but at its best it can provide the kind of sharp commentary on society that a million Oxbridge dinner party novels could only dream of. Arnaldur Indridason's Icelandic crime procedurals are…

Paul Auster - Man in the Dark

21 Aug 2008

In addressing the increasingly threadbare myths that America tells itself about 9/11 and the ensuing war, Auster has shed the dazzling hyper-reflexive post-modern narrative trickery he’s known for like an empty skin, revealing something tender and…

Aleksandar Hemon - The Lazarus Project

31 Jul 2008

FICTIONAL TRAVELOGUE (Picador) Aleksandar Hemon draws on his Bosnian heritage to weave two narratives into one startling insight of a nation wracked with war, poverty and pogroms. There are obvious parallels to his own life, as Vladimir Brik travels…

Salman Rushdie

Edinburgh International Book Festival

22 Jul 2008

Salman Rushdie’s new book The Enchantress Of Florence came close to being stillborn but he believes it represents the rebirth of his talent. The writing of his 11th novel was disrupted by the exit of his fourth wife, Padma Lakshmi. Distraught, Rushdie…

Bat's Life - Dark Knight

17 Jul 2008

Leigh Rafferty traces the highs and lows of the caped crusader’s cultural career

Donald Ray Pollock - Knockemstiff

17 Jul 2008

SHORT STORIES (Harvill Secker) Knockemstiff, Ohio, is so deprived it doesn’t register on maps anymore. This debut set of interconnected shorts about its people by former resident Donald Ray Pollock is unlikely to make anyone want to find the town…

Thomas Hettche - What We Are Made Of

17 Jul 2008

CINEMATIC THRILLER (Picador) The blurb on the flyleaf of Thomas Hettche’s German Booker prize-shortlisted novel likens his page-turning thriller to the films of David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino. Certainly, Hettche’s prose style is cinematic, not…

Glen Neath - The Fat Plan

17 Jul 2008

FICTION (Portobello) The trouble with writing a novel satirising the mundanity of life and the mind numbing tedium of bureaucracy is, well, it risks being mundane and tedious. This second minimalist novel from Neath aims at the likes of Beckett…

Various - Superman: Emperor Joker

17 Jul 2008

SUPER VILLAIN (DC) Despite an impressive writing team – including Jeph Loeb, JM DeMatteis and Ed McGuinness – Emperor Joker is a mess. This time, Superman takes on the harlequin of hate in a reality-warping tale as the Joker takes on God-like…

Michael Green & Denys Cowan - Batman: Lovers and Madmen

17 Jul 2008

SUPER VILLAIN (DC) The main problem with Lovers and Madmen is that in many ways it is contradictory to the events in The Killing Joke (which have become accepted as the origin story to the Joker over the years). It depicts the Joker as far…

Batman: Gotham Knight

DVD Review

17 Jul 2008

Intended to fill the gaps between Batman Begins and Dark Knight, Gotham Knights offers us six animated shorts, much in the same way as The Animatrix did for The Matrix. Each story is self-contained and created by a different writer (including Greg…

Last Word - Ron Butlin

19 Jun 2008

First record you ever bought ‘Nutrocker’ by B Bumble and the Stingers. A pioneering example of fusion – rock’n’roll meets Tchaikovsky. Still a landmark of tasteful desecration. Last time you were chatted up Last Saturday night! It was after I’d…

Helen FitzGerald - Dead Lovely

5 Jun 2008

CRIME NOVEL (Faber) Once I got beyond the fact that the murderer in this crime thriller-meets-chick lit novel resides on my Glasgow street, I found plenty to enjoy in Helen FitzGerald’s debut. Opening with Krissie’s confession that she’s cheated with…

Michael Bond - Paddington Here and Now

22 May 2008

KIDS COLLECTION (HarperCollins) When a book series returns from a long absence to mark its main character’s anniversary, it can often feel too much like a rushed job created purely to ensure that the keynote guest isn’t late for their own party.

HarperCollins to launch social networking site for authors

9 May 2008

HarperCollins UK has released its new social networking site Authonomy in private beta. The book publisher first announced the initiative in October 2007, and the site was expected to launch in early 2008. Authonomy aims to connect aspiring authors…

Scottish crime writing

1 Nov 2007

‘Ah, well. If you’re Scottish, and you’re writing crime fiction, at some point someone is going to hail you as “the new Ian Rankin” until they remember, no, actually Ian Rankin is still there. Alex Gray has been described as the Glaswegian Ian Rankin.

Alasdair Gray Interview

20 Sep 2007

Claire Sawers meets Alasdair Gray at his Glasgow home and finds that he has created yet another iconic, naïve and semi-tragic anti-hero.

Slam

Nick Hornby

20 Sep 2007

Sam is 15. He skates, chases girls and narrates his own coming-of-age novel. Things are going well until he gets one of those girls pregnant and is introduced to the world of adult responsibility. Plus, his father figure is a poster of pro-skater Tony…

Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror

Chris Priestly

20 Sep 2007

With a title like that and these spooky stories being told to a boy called Edgar, it’s hard not to think that this is a tribute to the creator of literary chillers, Mr Poe. And while reading this, it’s highly conceivable to hear the liquidy tones of…

Captain America: The Chosen No 1

David Morrell & Mitch Breitweiser

20 Sep 2007

In the current Marvel universe, Captain America is dead. Still, that doesn’t stop him being reincarnated when David Morrell – the novelist who created Rambo – comes calling for a scripting job. The majority of this first issue of six is about as…

Divisadero

Michael Ondaatje

20 Sep 2007

Best known for The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje provides another trademark non-linear narrative, attempting to create a whole out of disparate story strands, but with rather limited success. On a Californian farm, Anna, adopted sister Claire and…

Spent

Joe Matt

20 Sep 2007

The confessions of a self-justified jerk-off continue in this follow-up to The Poor Bastard, which collects the next four issues of Matt’s ongoing comic Peepshow. If anything, Spent (as in ejaculated and knackered) is an even more brazenly confessional…

The Saga of the Blood Benders

Rick Geary

20 Sep 2007

Rick Geary has produced stories and art for everyone from Heavy Metal and National Lampoon to Disney. However, recently he’s been focusing on his ‘Treasury of Victorian Murder’, which has covered Jack the Ripper through to The Murder of Abraham Lincoln…

David Thewlis

6 Sep 2007

BLACK COMEDY When Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker came up with Nathan Barley on Channel 4 a couple of years back, many people were perturbed that its main sticking point was in poking fun at a group who seemed no longer ripe for satire. Surely…

Neil Boorman

6 Sep 2007

LIFESTYLE TALE Your response to this book by London lifestyle journalist and publisher Neil Boorman is likely to correspond directly with your attachment to the very thing it challenges: brands, and the emotionally loaded consumerist machinery that…

Jeanette Winterson

6 Sep 2007

SOCIAL FABLES The Stone Gods offers up four stories about civilisations destroying themselves, and the individuals who find unconventional love among the ruins. Some of these work better than others, with Winterson ill at ease and over-explaining…

Ronan Bennett

6 Sep 2007

POLITICAL THRILLER After being serialised in The Observer in 2006, Irish author Ronan Bennett’s thriller of politics, psychoanalysis and chess gets a fully bound release. It’s 1914. Russia is under the thrall of singularly powerful men, the…

Craig Davidson

23 Aug 2007

Craig Davidson doesn’t pull any punches. We might as well get the terrible boxing pun out the way at the start, because his debut novel, The Fighter, is a brutally violent but brilliantly written tale set in the world of underground bare-knuckle…

Ewan Morrison

23 Aug 2007

For any writer who spends most of their time away all on their own in a darkened corner, it’s essential to have a release and to get some thoughts on their work from people they know and trust. For an author such as Ewan Morrison, dubbed notoriously as…

Ann Patchett

23 Aug 2007

In the space of 24 hours, Ann Patchett’s Run covers an entire social spectrum: interracial relationships, Catholicism and its validity, familial conflict, economic and class equality, and political ethics. This is a hefty fallout from a single event for…

William Gibson

23 Aug 2007

For his new novel Spook Country, William Gibson has written a frightening dispatch from the zeitgeist with a plot that’s as outlandish as the technical and cultural details are convincing. The subliminal hum of Gibson’s influence will doubtless ensure…

Lionel Shriver

23 Aug 2007

5 words to describe your latest book, The Post-Birthday World? Fun, funny, painful, warm (for once), and bittersweet. 4 authors who you think should be more famous than they are now? Richard Yates, Maria McCann, Peter Cameron and Robert…

Nathan Englander

(Faber)

23 Aug 2007

Nathan Englander, the New York-born author of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, makes a confident leap from critically acclaimed short story writer to novelist with the audacious The Ministry of Special Cases. It's set in 1970s Buenos Aires during…

Alan Bennett

(Profile)

23 Aug 2007

Alan Bennett’s latest work is a charmingly subversive novella in which the Queen develops a taste for reading. She stumbles upon the Westminster travelling library thanks to her ill-mannered corgis, and swiftly moves from a determined and dutiful…

AL Kennedy

23 Aug 2007

Dramatic career shifts don’t come more eye-opening than the transition from author to stand-up comic. But that’s the move AL Kennedy made over a year ago and she has gone on to prove to be just as adept in her new job. For this event, she will talk…

Marina Lewycka

16 Aug 2007

Marina Lewycka’s debut A History of Tractors in Ukrainian won over hearts and minds with a witty and largely autobiographical tale of a long settled immigrant family clashing over the encroaching senility of its obsessive and stubbornly romantic head.

Alan Warner

16 Aug 2007

When the movie of Morvern Callar opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival back in 2002, there was much talk that this would be the first of many film adaptations of Alan Warner’s work. Frankly, the thought of anyone trying to get a script out of…

Spook Country

William Gibson

16 Aug 2007

POLITICAL THRILLER Two-thirds into William Gibson’s latest novel, a most contemporary of thrillers, a character declares that, ‘sometimes the closer to a truth one gets, the more complicated things become’. By this stage in proceedings, that…

Ruth Thomas

16 Aug 2007

Things to Make and Mend is a quiet, moving, wryly amusing work which explores themes of friendship, class and betrayal. Ruth Thomas highlights her themes through the turbulent relationship between two very different women, Rowena and Sally, who first…

Mohsin Hamid

16 Aug 2007

‘Write about what you know’ is perhaps the most cogent piece of advice given to aspiring authors. Pakistan-born, Harvard-educated novelist Mohsin Hamid set out to do just that with his follow-up to the critically acclaimed Moth Smoke, penning a book…

Nikita Lalwani

16 Aug 2007

Child prodigies are fascinating. Standing out from the crowd, kids with remarkable mathematical powers are often pushed into the limelight, but do their lives pan out any better? Or does the abnormal childhood scar them? This is the subject for Nikita…