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RBS Talks - Dava Sobel

Books, Fiction and Jay Richardson

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Juli Zeh - The Method

Juli Zeh - The Method

A riveting intellectual and emotional thriller set in a dystopian future

(4 stars)16 Mar 2012

(Harvill Secker) German author Juli Zeh’s translated 2009 novel is an Orwellian vision of the near future in which civilisation adheres to the stark principles of The Method. Priority is given to physical health over mental freedom of the mind with…

Helen Schulman - This Beautiful Life

Helen Schulman - This Beautiful Life

Slightly outdated family drama that retains some timeliness and authenticity

(3 stars)1 Feb 2012

(Atlantic) With frightening believability, New York novelist Helen Schulman depicts a single, unthinking mouse-click tearing a family apart. Set in 2003, aspects of This Beautiful Life are outdated, but the key dramatic action of a 15-year-old boy…

The Death of Eli Gold

The Death of Eli Gold

David Baddeil's fictional biography returns to his favourite themes of love, sex and commitment

(3 stars)7 Mar 2011

A comic meditation on the death of ‘the world’s greatest living writer’, the destructive selfishness of male desire and the passing of the last ‘great man’ as a species, David Baddiel’s fourth novel further explores his preoccupations with love, sex and…

Emily Woof at the Writer's Retreat

Emily Woof at the Writer's Retreat

The ex-actress conducts a deep involvement with language

6 Aug 2010

Emily Woof first graced Edinburgh nude and on a trapeze for a trilogy of one-woman Fringe plays, under the Sex umbrella. And throughout The Whole Wide Beauty (the debut novel by The Full Monty and Wondrous Oblivion star), the loss of physical expression…

Sam Lipsyte - The Ask

Sam Lipsyte - The Ask

(4 stars)3 Jun 2010

(Old Street) Satire has become a dirty word in Britain, devalued through excessive application to intelligent but superficial, self-satisfied observations of our uncertain times. In the US though, where The Daily Show and The Onion set the standard…

Dead Lovely

Helen FitzGerald - Dead Lovely

(3 stars)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…

William Gibson

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…

Nick Cohen

Nick Cohen

Observing hatred in all its forms

9 Aug 2007

Nick Cohen is a rare beast. A pro-invasion of Iraq commentator with impeccable left-wing credentials, he was moved to write What’s Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way by a perception that liberals were forming an unholy alliance with fascism in failing to…

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