Books, Reviews, Issue 655

Peter Milligan - Human Target

(Vertigo/Titan) With the Human Target TV series getting its first UK airing on the Syfy channel this month, Peter Milligan’s four-part miniseries and graphic novel Final Cut have been collected together for the first time. If you think your life is…

Jachym Topol - Gargling with Tar

(Portobello) Jachym Topol is a leading cultural figure in the Czech Republic and this fourth novel, his first translated into English, is an astute blend of the personal with the political. It’s 1968 in rural Czechoslovakia, and orphan Ilya has his…

Kirsten Reed - The Ice Age

(Picador) In case you hadn’t noticed, vampires are all the rage right now. So the subject matter of Kirsten Reed’s debut novel couldn’t be more apt. A disillusioned teen, desperate for a bit of adventure, meets an older bohemian bloke she reckons…

Blake Morrison - The Last Weekend

(Chatto & Windus) Blake Morrison is not one to shy away from the dark places, the unspoken or acutely personal, as his study of the James Bulger trial or bestselling confessional And When Did You Last See Your Father? will testify. In this, his third…

Richard Herring - How Not to Grow Up!

(Ebury Press) Expanding on his 2007 stand-up show, Oh Fuck, I’m 40!, this unlikely coming-of-age memoir chronicles Richard Herring’s hurtle towards middle age and the various crises it accelerated. Unmarried, childless and avowedly immature, the…