Books and Reviews

Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending

Economically-told novella from the master storyteller

21 Jul 2011

(Jonathan Cape) Imprecise memory, lifelong regrets and the inconsistencies between shared histories are at the heart of Julian Barnes’ short and sharp new novella. As a title, The Sense of an Ending refers to the way in which his characters…

Sean Connery & Murray Grigor - Being a Scot

4 Sep 2008

Many Scots cynics, upon seeing the title of this new coffee table volume by our most famous actor, might be inspired to enquire just how much research on the subject can be done by an ex-pat who hasn't lived in the country for decades. It's an…

Alan Warner - The Deadman's Pedal

Evocative and personal rural drama from the Morvern Callar author

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…

Ewan Morrison - Tales from the Mall

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

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…

Christopher Hitchens - Arguably

Stellar collection of essays from the outspoken journalist

16 Sep 2011

(Atlantic) As Christopher Hitchens movingly concedes in the intro to Arguably, he writes each new slice of social, political and cultural commentary as though it may be his last. While others would have disappeared within their shell at having…

Jo Nesbø - Phantom

A new, hard-hitting instalment of the Norwegian author's Harry Hole series

28 Feb 2012

(Harvill Secker) Like all great fictional detectives, Harry Hole is always one step ahead. Not only of us, the reader, but those around him. Which, when you’re trying to solve a crime, is a definite bonus. Less so when it comes to affairs of the…

Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin - The Cream of Tank Girl

16 Oct 2008

ART For Tank Girl fans, this is the book you’ve been waiting for; a glossy retrospective covering her anarchic antics from 1988 until today, including an honest account of her Hollywood hell (neither writer Alan Martin or artist Jamie Hewlett liked…

The Midnight Beast - Book At Us Now

Unfunny pop-parody book designed to cash in on upcoming TV fame

18 Oct 2011

(Coronet) ‘We mock the living hell out of stuff for a living,’ claim London pop parody trio The Midnight Beast. Even in this disposable age, simply poking fun at more talented people can only stretch so far before the game is up. Success rarely…

Nicolas de Crécy - The Celestial Bibendum

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

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…

Mark Haddon - The Red House

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

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…

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…

Ned Beauman - Boxer Beetle

23 Jul 2010

(Sceptre) Not one for the easily shocked, young scribe Ned Beauman subjects the reader to a parade of ghoulish events and ghastly theories throughout his dazzling first novel Boxer Beetle. Admittedly it’s hard work at first, as we’re introduced to a…

Don’t Look Now - Ed. Paul Newland

16 Jun 2010

(Intellect Press) Don’t Look Now is a work of low-key persuasion; it wants to convince us that seventies British cinema wasn’t an aesthetic dire strait, but a forking path of numerous possibilities. The decade may have given us film versions of On…

Edward Ross - Filmish

20 Jan 2010

(Chiaroscuro) Edinburgh-based cartoonist, comic writer and filmmaker Edward Ross releases this sharp and wryly amusing ‘wee collection of comic book essays on film theory’. This isn’t hard academia (and doesn’t pretend to be) but an engaging look at…

Pieter Waterdrinker - The German Wedding

19 Nov 2009

(Atlantic) Pieter Waterdrinker’s clever wedding farce isn’t the average boy meets girl story. Here, rich girl meets conniving boy; girl fakes pregnancy to trap boy, boy lies through teeth to get hands on her colossal inheritance – and breathtaking…

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…

Mark Radcliffe - Thank You for the Days

2 Apr 2009

Showbiz is, as many will attest, a fickle business. Radio DJ, TV presenter, musician and all-round music boffin Mark Radcliffe has managed to exist on its periphery, trousers and dignity both relatively intact, for over two and a half decades. That’s…

Faking It

Hugh Barker & Yuval Taylor

26 Mar 2007

MUSIC HISTORY The concept of ‘keeping it real’ is one that has been ever more bastardised by popular music recently, when even the most formulaic and constructed of bands can drop the phrase as some self-imposed token of relevance. Hugh Barker and…

Hannah Berry - Adamtine

A disconcerting horror comic from the creator of Britten and Brülightly

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…

Nikita Lalwani - The Village

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

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…

Michael Frayn - Skios

An astute and entertaining comic novel from the erstwhile playwright

24 Apr 2012

(Faber) Michael Frayn’s new novel is a farce of Carry On proportions. Awkward sexual encounters, mistaken identities and buffoonish caricatures of powerful men and women litter the plot of this engaging, occasionally bawdy comedy. To many, Frayn is…

Stephen King - 11.22.63

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

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…

Umberto Eco - On Ugliness

Entertaining collection of art history essays edited by the Italian author

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…

Eric Skillman and Jhomar Soriano - Liar's Kiss

Unpredictable crime noir graphic novel from new writer and artist team

12 May 2011

Top Shelf Comix. Featuring a real loser of a protagonist and devolving around a series of misunderstandings and bad coincidences, this stylish, noirish hard-boiled crime graphic novel recalls, among other things, certain films of the Coen brothers. In…

Allan Brown - Nileism: The Strange Course of the Blue Nile

Biography of enigmatic Glaswegian soul-pop perfectionists leaves much unresolved

30 Nov 2010

(Polygon) The peculiar bubble which enigmatic Glaswegian soul-pop perfectionists the Blue Nile inhabited during their 26 years together burst circa 2004, leaving the three members bitterly estranged ever since. Even if the famously glacial pace they…