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RBS Talks - Dava Sobel

Books and Reviews

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Alan Warner - The Deadman's Pedal

Alan Warner - The Deadman's Pedal

Evocative and personal rural drama from the Morvern Callar author

(4 stars)22 May 2012

In a literary career which has played down the overly autobiographical tendency (all that writing from a female perspective malarkey for one thing), The Deadman’s Pedal seems far and away Alan Warner’s most personal fiction to date. We return to the…

Hannah Berry - Adamtine

Hannah Berry - Adamtine

A disconcerting horror comic from the creator of Britten and Brülightly

(4 stars)22 May 2012

British graphic novelist Hannah Berry’s near-perfect debut, Britten and Brülightly, was a detective yarn inspired by Graham Greene and Carol Reed. But the familiar post-war milieu was given a surreal comic twist with the inclusion of a character that…

Ewan Morrison - Tales from the Mall

Ewan Morrison - Tales from the Mall

A wealth of information and anecdotes drawn together to paint a funny, scary portrait of our times

(4 stars)22 May 2012

As Ewan Morrison notes in his introduction, the shopping mall is a potent symbol of the homogenised world in which we live now. You could look at images of shopping centres in Dundee and Dresden and chances are you won’t be able to tell them apart. The…

Nikita Lalwani - The Village

Nikita Lalwani - The Village

A tense social drama about trust and betrayal, set in an Indian prison

(4 stars)22 May 2012

When Ray Bhullar travels to an Indian ‘open prison’ village to film a behind-the-scenes BBC documentary, she gets more than she bargained for. ‘Everyone here has killed someone,’ she’s told, as she slowly adapts to the sights and smells of her alien new…

John Irving - In One Person

John Irving - In One Person

A fascinating and engaging novel set against the backdrop of gay culture in America

(4 stars)22 May 2012

Write about what you know, we’re told, and John Irving is certainly a big subscriber to that particular maxim. For his 13th novel, Irving once again inhabits the worlds of New Hampshire (his birthplace) and wrestling (his preferred sport). Our…

Chris Cleave - Gold

Chris Cleave - Gold

Well-timed Olympic-themed novel fails to fulfill the promise of its intriguing premise

(3 stars)22 May 2012

There’s something intriguing about the mindset of those athletes who are honed from a very young age into Olympic machines. Lives are altered irrevocably in pursuit of a small gold disc and the too-fleeting associated glory: a strange, self-obsessed way…

Nicolas de Crécy - The Celestial Bibendum

Nicolas de Crécy - The Celestial Bibendum

Gorgeous reprint and translation of artist/writer de Crécy’s often bizarre comic

(4 stars)27 Apr 2012

Knockabout, the UK publisher/distributor that’s been making Transatlantic underground and alternative comics available to the turned on and tuned in since the 1980s, has more recently been in the business of translating and repackaging into oversize…

Gordon Ferris - Bitter Water

Gordon Ferris - Bitter Water

Easy Tartan Noir read lacking in excitement and originality

(3 stars)27 Apr 2012

(Corvus) Tartan Noir has been steadily gathering pace over the years as more and more Scottish authors try their hand at crime writing and Gordon Ferris is the latest to be heralded as the ‘new Ian Rankin’. But the excitement that should come from the…

Mark Haddon - The Red House

Mark Haddon - The Red House

The Curious Incident author delivers a mature domestic drama for grown-ups

(4 stars)24 Apr 2012

(Jonathan Cape) Prolific author of children’s books and part-time writer of novels for adults, Mark Haddon’s latest is his most mature work to date. It’s mature in terms of both content and style, and reading The Red House there’s a sense that this…

Dan Slott & Humberto Ramos - Spider-Man: Spider Island

Dan Slott & Humberto Ramos - Spider-Man: Spider Island

New Spidey adventure too frivolous to be genuinely engaging

(2 stars)24 Apr 2012

(Marvel) Spider-Man has always been one of the comics world’s more light-hearted superheroes. While there have been moments of introspection and heartache, he’s always more than ready with a corny quip as he swings into battle. Spider Island continues…

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