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Books and Reviews

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Electric Man

Electric Man

A patchy, if well intentioned, Edinburgh-set comic comedy

(3 stars)8 Feb 2012

(12A tbc) 98min Shot in Edinburgh on a micro-budget, comic shop comedy Electric Man declares its intentions from the off: this is to be no social realist kitchen sink drama, typical of the UK film industry, but rather a light-hearted love-letter to…

Joost Swarte: Is That All There Is?

Joost Swarte: Is That All There Is?

Compendium of the Dutch cartoonist’s satirical alternative comics

(4 stars)3 Feb 2012

Apparently so. Or almost so. Is That All There Is? collects virtually all of the Dutch cartoonist’s alternative comics from way back in 1972 to the present day, translates them into English and assembles them, under Swarte’s own supervision, in this…

Shalom Auslander - Hope: A Tragedy

Shalom Auslander - Hope: A Tragedy

Probably the funniest book that’s ever going to be written about the Holocaust

(5 stars)1 Feb 2012

(Picador) This is probably the funniest book that’s ever going to be written about the Holocaust. But then Shalom Auslander has previous experience of laugh-out-loud writings about Jewish guilt, paranoia, misery and self-loathing. His short story…

Jeet Thayil - Narcopolis

Jeet Thayil - Narcopolis

Bombay-centric social drama with tangible atmosphere but little narrative drive

(3 stars)1 Feb 2012

(Faber) Narcopolis begins and ends with the word ‘Bombay’. Although several individuals vie for centre stage in poet Jeet Thayil’s debut novel, the main character here is India’s most densely populated city. Viewed as a solemn and dangerous hive…

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Slightly outdated family drama that retains some timeliness and authenticity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 Set in 2003, aspects of This Beautiful Life are outdated, but the key dramatic action of a 15-year-old boy…

Courtney Taylor-Taylor & Jim Rugg - One Model Nation

Courtney Taylor-Taylor & Jim Rugg - One Model Nation

Unsuccessful comic book crossover attempt from the Dandy Warhols frontman

(2 stars)27 Jan 2012

(Titan Books) It’s always interesting when someone turns their hand from one artform to another. However, One Model Nation is proof that the results aren’t always as interesting as the concept. The idea of a comic from Dandy Warhols’ frontman…

Geoff Dyer - Zona

Geoff Dyer - Zona

The multi-talented humourist turns his able hand to film criticism

(4 stars)27 Jan 2012

(Canongate) Having previously mashed-up fiction, journalism, essay, biography and travel writing, polymath and humourist Geoff Dyer once more defies genre with a book that’s one part film criticism, one part autobiography and several parts random…

Sophie Hannah - Kind of Cruel

Sophie Hannah - Kind of Cruel

The seventh Zailer and Waterhouse murder mystery zips along but falters at the end

(3 stars)27 Jan 2012

(Hodder & Stoughton) Kind of Cruel is Sophie Hannah’s seventh release to feature police duo and dysfunctional couple DS Charlie Zailer and DC Simon Waterhouse, recently brought to life on ITV by Olivia Williams and Darren Boyd. This taut, nightmarish…

Edmund White - Jack Holmes and His Friend

Edmund White - Jack Holmes and His Friend

A beautifully written tale of sex and male friendship

(4 stars)5 Jan 2012

(Bloomsbury) Edmund White has never shied away from putting himself on the page, scribing autobiographical fiction and memoirs for over 30 years. Jack Holmes and His Friend is no exception. White attended boarding school in the American Midwest…

Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows - Neonomicon

Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows - Neonomicon

Moore takes some liberties with Lovecraft's stories, but as ever, does a grand job of it

(4 stars)5 Jan 2012

(Avatar) While we wait impatiently for the final instalment of the latest The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century (see our review of part two), we have this new graphic novella from the grand magi of comics to be going on with. Neonomicon is…

Stuart MacBride - Birthdays for the Dead

Stuart MacBride - Birthdays for the Dead

The tartan noir author diverges from the Logan McRae series with a compelling and brutal thriller

(3 stars)5 Jan 2012

(HarperCollins) A standalone diversion from his Logan McRae series of novels, Stuart MacBride once again demonstrates how he puts the grit into the Granite City. That said, Birthdays for the Dead isn’t set in Aberdeen, instead the action shifts to…

Marcus Berkmann - A Shed of One’s Own

Marcus Berkmann - A Shed of One’s Own

Occasionally hilarious, occasionally turgid treatise on middle-age

(3 stars)5 Jan 2012

(Little, Brown) What is middle-age? Is it a fixed number or a fluid miasma of values, outlooks and opinions? Marcus Berkmann, probably correctly, believes it could strike at any time (you could even get a middle-aged teenager) but is perhaps more…

Ali Shaw - The Man Who Rained

Ali Shaw - The Man Who Rained

Fantastical modern fable from the author of The Girl With Glass Feet

(3 stars)19 Dec 2011

(Atlantic) After the success of The Girl With Glass Feet, Ali Shaw sticks to his penchant for penning fables with a folklore-filled romance set in a small, superstitious American town. But Thunderstown is not as it first appears when Elsa Beletti…

Miranda July - It Chooses You

Miranda July - It Chooses You

Charming miscellany of human oddness from the Californian Renaissance Woman

(4 stars)12 Dec 2011

(Canongate) It’s OK to be a bit weird around Miranda July. Or have anxieties, or a tendency to procrastinate, or a habit of lying in order to be polite. It’s all fine with her; in fact, she’d probably prefer it. July created her first play as a…

Metaphrog - Louis: Red Letter Day

Metaphrog - Louis: Red Letter Day

Reissue of the Glasgow-based graphic novel duo's 2000 Louis debut

(3 stars)12 Dec 2011

(Metaphrog) A year after the publication of the fifth Louis book, Night Salad, the Glasgow-based writer-illustrator partnership Metaphrog celebrates a decade of their series of graphic novels for kids and adults. To mark the event, Scot John Chalmers…

Simon Armitage - The Death of King Arthur

Simon Armitage - The Death of King Arthur

The Yorkshire poet follows his Gawain translation with another medieval epic

(4 stars)12 Dec 2011

(Faber) In 2006 Simon Armitage embarked upon the commissioned task of translating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for a modern audience. Encountering some resistance from the ‘lady on the desk’ at the British Library when he requested a peek at the…

Adam Ross - Ladies and Gentlemen

Adam Ross - Ladies and Gentlemen

Comically dark short story collection from the Mr Peanut author

(4 stars)12 Dec 2011

(Jonathan Cape) In spite of the dark, comically cruel note struck by this short story collection, Ladies and Gentlemen makes surprisingly quick and easy reading. As with his 2010 debut novel, Mr Peanut, Adam Ross suffuses his prose with compelling…

Douglas Coupland & Graham Roumieu - Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People

Douglas Coupland & Graham Roumieu - Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People

Pacy but insubstantial short story collection

(3 stars)12 Dec 2011

(Heinemann) For anyone who has a glance at the cover of this book and believes that all they have spied is a cute illustration aimed at kids might want to take a closer look. It suggests that reading this collaboration between Generation X writer…

Michel Schneider - Marilyn’s Last Sessions: A Novel

Michel Schneider - Marilyn’s Last Sessions: A Novel

Poorly structured fictional history of star's final sessions on the couch

(2 stars)12 Dec 2011

(Canongate) By including the words ‘a novel’ in his title, Schneider has bought himself a rather enormous caveat. Namely that some aspects of this semi-biographical account of Marilyn Monroe and her psychoanalyst Ralph Greenson are true – others not.

The Art of Joe Kubert

The Art of Joe Kubert

Wonderful collection of comics art from one of the legends of the medium

(4 stars)21 Nov 2011

Edited by Bill Schelly (Fantagraphics) Alongside the ongoing and consistently groundbreaking efforts of Fantagraphics Books Inc to publish the work of new and cutting edge cartoonists (beginning with Los Bros Hernandez's Love & Rockets in the late…

Stephen King - 11.22.63

Stephen King - 11.22.63

The horror writer's time-travelling thriller fails to take full advantage of its premise

(3 stars)15 Nov 2011

(Hodder & Stoughton) There is no doubting Stephen King’s abiding knack for a gripping yarn, but the American author’s latest novel could be doing with a few more thrills. That’s not to say that the plot is lacklustre or lacking in scale, taking a…

Rick Remender & Tony Moore - Venom / Zeb Wells & Clayton Crain - Carnage

Rick Remender & Tony Moore - Venom / Zeb Wells & Clayton Crain - Carnage

Spiderman villains comics deliver great action

(3 stars)15 Nov 2011

(Marvel UK) A double dose of villains this month, reintroducing two of Spider-Man’s arch enemies to the Marvel Universe. Venom and Carnage are both symbiotes, a parasitic species that bonds with a human host bestowing them with immense power at a…

Sarah Hall - The Beautiful Indifference

Sarah Hall - The Beautiful Indifference

The Booker nominee delivers a short story collection with an eye for spectacular imagery

(4 stars)15 Nov 2011

(Faber) Four books into her literary career and a Booker nomination in the locker (for 2004’s The Electric Michelangelo), Sarah Hall is being touted as one of the key British voices of her generation. There is little doubt that she can weave some…

Axel Scheffler (illus.) - The Gloomster

Axel Scheffler (illus.) - The Gloomster

Julia Donaldson's favoured illustrator fails to justify the asking price of this slim poetry adap

(2 stars)15 Nov 2011

(Faber) Any parents out there picking up this book would be forgiven for thinking it was some kind of Gruffalo sequel. Only this time, the central character is seeking therapy rather than a mouse. Translated by children’s author Julia Donaldson, and…

Umberto Eco - On Ugliness

Umberto Eco - On Ugliness

Entertaining collection of art history essays edited by the Italian author

(4 stars)15 Nov 2011

(MacLehose Press) Just as notions of beauty are very much in the eye of the beholder, what constitutes ‘ugly’ can be viewed differently across centuries and continents. Football teams who ‘play ugly’ might still end up as winners, while being told by…

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