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…

Geoff Johns & Ivan Reis - Blackest Night

27 Oct 2010

(DC/Titan) The first Green Lantern (aka Alan Scott) was created by Bill Finger and Martin Nodell in 1940. But it was the introduction of Hal Jordan in 1952 that was the birth of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force who wield a power…

Antony Gormley - One and Other

6 Oct 2010

(Jonathan Cape) For 100 days last year, 2400 chosen people plonked themselves atop the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square and had an hour to express pretty much anything they wished. So, we had one person delivering a list of apologies for all the…

Austin Wright - Tony & Susan

14 May 2010

(Atlantic) New York novelist Austin Wright created this clever, multi-layered novel in 1993, to reasonable acclaim and the acquisition of film rights. Then it disappeared, out of print and forgotten until somebody saw fit to rescue it. Which is just…

Chris Kent - Medusa

21 Jan 2010

(Graphite Fiction) Borders-based artist and writer Chris Kent has produced a strong piece of complex work for his debut comics project. Using collage, photo and painted art Medusa has a unique look for a haunting tale of lose and longing. Following…

501 Minutes to Christ - Poe Ballantine

17 Dec 2009

(Old Street Publishing) For Poe Ballantine, the point of an essay isn’t just to pass on information or offer some straight analysis. It all works so much better when it’s given the feel of a drama, which is why this new set of stories often feels as…

Gilbert Shelton - The Fat Freddy’s Cat Omnibus

19 Nov 2009

(Knockabout) While he might come across as a hippy Garfield, Fat Freddy’s Cat actually predates the lasagne-obsessed ginger tom by nine years. Springing from the pages of the ultimate stoner’s comic – The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers – which was…

Heavy Metal Dredd by John Wagner, Alan Grant and various

A collection of Judge Dredd's most exteme adventures

3 Sep 2009

More from your favourite ultra hard-line future lawman in this collection of some of Judge Dredd’s most extreme stories. First printed in Rock Power and the Judge Dredd Megazine, these are stories with no limits, going for bloody slapstick comedy with a…

Christopher Brookmyre - Pandaemonium

18 Aug 2009

It had to happen sometime. Over the course of 12 books, Christopher Brookmyre has maintained his ability to engage, amuse, appal (in a good way) and keep us guessing to the last line. But, unless great swathes of expositional prose about the laws of…

Curt Sibling - Total Fear: Collection 3

11 Jun 2009

HORROR COMIC There’s been a resurgence in the world of underground comics in Scotland of late, as we’ve tried to reflect on these very pages over the last few months. Now Curt Sibling is back with more of his effervescent adult’s only humour. Total…

Giles Foden: Turbulence

28 May 2009

Giles Foden’s novel opens with the fantastical vision of icebergs being towed from Antarctica to Saudi Arabia for the purpose of watering the Sheikh’s desert. Taking in sea lions trained to detect mines, frissons and debate, the horror and waste of war…

Alexander McCall Smith - La's Orchestra Saves the World

30 Oct 2008

When a master of storytelling such as Alexander McCall Smith puts pen to paper, we have come to expect great things. And he doesn't disappoint with this latest stand-alone title, a warm and captivating tale of strength, passion and friendship set in…

Judge Dredd Megazine No.275

4 Sep 2008

The other outlet for Dredd's continuing adventures in near-future totalitarianism alongside 2000AD is the Megazine, relaunched this issue, including a free mini-graphic novel collecting Dredd stories illustrated by Jock. Regular writer John Wagner is…

Frank Miller & Jim Lee - All Star Batman and Robin

14 Aug 2008

COMIC (DC/Titan) Frank Miller and Jim Lee tackle the world’s greatest detective and the boy wonder in this sister title to Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly’s All Star Superman. The first nine issues of the ongoing series are collected here, and like…

Derren Brown - Tricks of the Mind

Derren Brown

7 Dec 2006

BIOGRAPHY/MANUAL What’s the first rule among magicians? Surely it’s the one about never ever divulging the secrets of your chosen profession. So, what on earth is Derren Brown doing here telling the humble general public how to develop useful…

Ian Rankin

The Naming of the Dead (Orion)

26 Oct 2006

CRIME DRAMA Truculent DI Rebus is as familiar as an old pair of slippers these days, not least because of Ken Stott’s excellent recent portrayal on television. This latest escapade around Ian Rankin’s schizophrenic Edinburgh (the 17th Rebus book…

Gavin Pretor-Pinney - Clouds that Look Like Things

Occasionally unconvincing gallery of cloudy lookalikes

27 Mar 2012

(Sceptre) As founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, Gavin Pretor-Pinney knows more than a thing or two about cirrus and cumulus. And all the other ones. The trouble with this collection is that some of the pictures are, frankly, not very…

David Kushner - Jacked

An entertaining, if hyperbolic, 'unauthorised' history of Grand Theft Auto

16 Mar 2012

(Collins) After a similar book on Doom, journalist David Kushner returns to familiar ground with Jacked. This ‘unauthorised’ history of Grand Theft Auto traces the game’s development from its early beginnings in Dundee to become one of the highest…

Peter Carey - The Chemistry of Tears

Moving portrait of grief and genius from the twice Booker-winning author

16 Mar 2012

(Faber) Grief haunts the pages of Peter Carey’s new novel, the twice Booker-winning author painting a compelling picture of all-consuming love in the 19th and 21st centuries. Catherine Gehrig is an horologist turned museum conservator who, following…

Robert Aldrich - Gay Life Stories

Fascinating insight into the lives of gay men and women throughout history

28 Feb 2012

(Thames & Hudson) Gay rights have made huge strides in the West in the past couple of decades and with that has come an increase in the numbers of openly gay celebrities from across the spectrum of public life. But what of the many unsung heroes of…

Jeet Thayil - Narcopolis

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

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…

Ali Shaw - The Man Who Rained

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

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…

Michel Schneider - Marilyn’s Last Sessions: A Novel

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

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.

Des Dillon's 'An Experiment in Compassion' is a painful and poignat look at alcoholism

13 Apr 2011

(Luath) It takes one to know one, we’re told, and Des Dillon’s painfully honest account of living with alcoholism certainly seems to bear that out. It’s 20 years since the Coatbridge-born author stopped looking for solace in the bottom of a bottle…

Miranda France - Hill Farm

Rural drama is a lot better than the blurb would have you believe

15 Mar 2011

‘It was the summer that everything changed’ the dust jacket intones. For farmer’s wife Isabel Hayes (mid-thirties, with three children, adventureless in a small farming community and a stale marriage), something had to give. We are promised ‘a handsome…

Susan Maushart - The Winter of Our Disconnect

Entertaining cautionary tale of media addiction from New York journalist

12 Jan 2011

(Profile) With Susan Maushart’s home strewn with laptops, Nintendos and webcams, this single mother of three teenagers decided to embark on ‘The Experiment’. Her six-month exile from technology was a controversial move as her kids were Facebook…

Adrian Johns - Death of a Pirate

History of rogue broadcasters' ideological quest resonates with Pirate Bay trial

19 Nov 2010

(WW Norton) The groovy aspect of 1960s British pirate radio has already been dramatised in Richard Curtis’ film The Boat That Rocked. University of Chicago professor Adrian Johns charts the story’s more serious side: how rogue broadcasters were…

Vidal Sassoon

The Life and Times of a Style Icon

1 Sep 2010

(Macmillan) Vidal Sassoon was once called ‘the Chanel of hair’ by his friend Mary Quant. While she was upping skirt lengths during the 60s, he was busy revolutionising attitudes to hair. He thought back combing, hairspraying and spaceman-helmet…

Alan Warner - The Stars in the Bright Sky

20 May 2010

(Jonathan Cape) While Alan Warner has described the choice of The Sopranos to be given the sequel treatment as ‘vulgar’, he has penned a follow-up which can best be dubbed ‘tasteful’. While the chattering class of his ‘98 tale of female mayhem have…

Tony S Daniel & Various - Batman: Battle for the Cowl

25 Feb 2010

(DC/Titan) VARIOUS After the cataclysmic events in Grant Morrison’s Batman RIP, there’s a void in Gotham City, and while Nightwing, Robin, Huntress, Batgirl, Catwoman and their allies are trying to fend off the crimewave, it appears someone needs to…

George Pelecanos - The Way Home

11 Jun 2009

SOCIAL DRAMA Having long since established his credentials as a chronicler of life on the mean streets of Washington DC, George Pelecanos more recently broadened his fanbase as screenwriter and story editor on The Wire, the Baltimore-based TV show…

Jake Arnott: The Devil's Paintbrush

28 May 2009

Moving far away from his London-centric crime tales, Jake Arnott has plundered a chance and highly unlikely meeting between two figures from Britain’s colonial past. The Black Isle-born Hector Macdonald, aka Fighting Mac, was a proud general who fought…

Film Books Round-Up

30 Apr 2009

Liberal, Jewish, prolific, daring and bald – there can be little doubt that theatre and film director Otto Preminger (pictured, above) was one of Austria’s greatest gifts to Hollywood. Literary consideration of Preminger’s oeuvre, which includes a…

Christopher McDougall - Born to Run

30 Apr 2009

SOCIAL TRAVELOGUE In 2001, former war correspondent and much-injured running nut Christopher McDougall asked his doctor why his foot hurt so badly. The medic, an expert in sports medicine, informed McDougall that at over six foot tall, his body was…

GF Newman - Crime and Punishment

2 Apr 2009

(Quercus) GANGSTER NOVEL This London gangster novel doesn’t aspire to the lofty literary allusions of its Russian namesake. Eschewing Dostoevsky’s musings on the moral dilemma of murder, crime writer and TV producer Gordon Newman (Law and Order…

Pat Mills and Various - ABC Warriors: The Meknificent Seven / The Shadow Warriors

2 Apr 2009

(Rebellion) SCI-FI COMIC More British sci-fi action from 2000AD with the ‘Atomic’, ‘Bacterial’, ‘Chemical’ robot warriors, built to withstand any crisis. Going right back to their debut in 1979, The Meknificent Seven shows the formation of the…

Mark Millar & Various - Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest

19 Mar 2009

SUPERHERO COMICS Coatbridge’s Mark Millar has been in the upper echelons of comic book superstars since he started writing The Authority in 2000. This was swiftly followed by Ultimate X-Men while memorable subsequent projects have included Civil War…

Daniel Depp - Loser’s Town

19 Feb 2009

(Simon & Schuster) CRIME DRAMA Daniel Depp’s claim to fame to date is being the half-brother of movie star Johnny and co-writing The Brave, which was nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or prize at Cannes in 1997. As a former Hollywood…

Ian Rankin - Doors Open

18 Sep 2008

CRIME NOVEL After 18 novels, John Rebus retired in his last outing, Exit Music. Whether the detective inspector will return is unclear, but in the meantime Ian Rankin is having some fun spreading his authorial wings. This heist story was first…

Mike Mignola & John Byrne - Hellboy: Seed of Destruction

21 Aug 2008

Cinema-goers flummoxed by the lack of backstory in the new Hellboy film should take the chance to go back to the supernatural hero’s origins, with this timely re-release of a four-part comic first published in 1993. Without spoiling the plot, it…

Chris Cleave - The Other Hand

14 Aug 2008

SOCIAL DRAMA (Sceptre) After the success of his 2005 debut novel The Incendiary, Chris Cleave turns his attention from terrorist attacks to the equally provocative issue of immigration. Written as a first person narrative, The Other Hand describes the…

Film Books Round-up

17 Jul 2008

In terms of wealth of research and weightiness of tome Richard Brody’s biography of Jean-Luc Godard, Everything is Cinema (Faber) ••••, should be a masterpiece. Yet for all its detail Godard remains an enigma, and this seems neither for want of research…

Dan Slott & Juan Bobillo - She-Hulk: Single Green Female

5 Jun 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) Finally how could we ignore She-Hulk? After receiving an irradiated blood transfusion from her cousin, Bruce Banner, Jennifer Walters inherited some of his powers and strength. However, she’s in control of her emotions and isn’t…

Rodge Glass - Hope For Newborns

22 May 2008

SOCIAL DRAMA (Faber) After the success of debut No Fireworks, Rodge Glass returns to themes of lapsing Judaism, focusing on what it means to be British in an age where homeland pride is a misty-eyed memory, and an anomaly to third generation…

Joe Humphreys - Foul Play

10 Apr 2008

SPORT HISTORY (Icon Books) With the protests surrounding the Beijing Olympics going into overdrive, disgraced sprinter Dwain Chambers seeking a new career in rugby league and the integrity of referees, umpires and line judges being called into…

Reginald Hudlin, Larry Stroman & Ken Lashley - Black Panther: Black to the Future

13 Mar 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) Marvel celebrates Black History Month with this double-sized one shot focusing on two of the highest profile black characters in comics: The Black Panther and his wife Storm (of X-Men fame). The tale is set in the fictional African…

James Meek - We Are Now Beginning Our Descent

Canongate

31 Jan 2008

WAR DRAMA JAMES MEEK We Are Now Beginning Our Descent (Canongate) After the epic scope of his post-Russian Revolution prize-winner, The People’s Act of Love, James Meek turns his eye to recent history, drawing on his experience as The Guardian’s…

Dave Evans - Coolhunting

4 Jan 2008

CULT DESIGN Current adverts for DVD box sets of flashy dross such as The OC and Friends claim that these shows are ‘funny, sexy, cool’. But what, then, does it mean to be cool? The definitions have certainly changed down the years with archetypal…

Peter York & Olivia Stewart-Liberty

18 Oct 2007

SOCIAL HANDBOOK Cooler, Faster, More Expensive: The Return of the Sloane Ranger (Atlantic) Conspicuous for their vast, inherited wealth, public school education and cushy jobs in the City, Sloanes (aka ‘rahs’, ‘yahs’ or ‘upper class twats’…

Paul Barker

18 Oct 2007

FAMILY GUIDE The Book of Dad (Fourth Estate) According to Paul Barker, Journalist Dad lives on pork scratchings and cigarettes, drives a second hand Saab and dreams of hanging out with Hollywood’s finest at the Dorchester Hotel while actually…

Helen Mirren - In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures

Memoir

4 Oct 2007

‘I have a blissfully forgetful brain,’ Helen Mirren informs us in the opening paragraph of her autobiography, which hardly bodes well for a book which demands total recall. But Mirren has dredged the past up from somewhere, or someone, because In the…

Nicolas de Crecy - Glacial Period

Graphic novel

4 Oct 2007

Being branded an enfant terrible is too often faint praise for some artists but it poses no problems for Nicolas De Crécy who goes to great pains not to conform to stereotypical comic boy clichés and in doing so has produced a distinct body of work that…

Jeanette Winterson

6 Sep 2007

SOCIAL FABLES The Stone Gods offers up four stories about civilisations destroying themselves, and the individuals who find unconventional love among the ruins. Some of these work better than others, with Winterson ill at ease and over-explaining…

A Light-Hearted Look at Murder

16 Jul 2007

BLACK COMEDY MARK WATSON A Light-Hearted Look at Murder (Chatto & Windus) (Image: © Emilie Fjola Sandy) Mark Watson has been described as ‘a Will Self with dignity’. Admittedly, it was in his spoof biography for the BBC2 comedy Time…

Dan Rhodes

Gold (Canongate)

12 Mar 2007

COMIC NOVEL Were the cast of Last of the Summer Wine a little more off-kilter and if Nora Batty was a bit less of a lumpy-stockinged battleaxe with an eye for mindless trivia, they could have easily come to mind when reading Dan Rhodes’ pleasing and…

John Irving - In One Person

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

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

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

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…

Gordon Ferris - Bitter Water

Easy Tartan Noir read lacking in excitement and originality

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…

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

New Spidey adventure too frivolous to be genuinely engaging

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…

Russell Kane - The Humorist

A gory black comedy from the restless comic

24 Apr 2012

(Simon & Schuster) Anyone familiar with Russell Kane’s stand-up comedy won’t be surprised with his debut dip into literary fiction. The winner of the 2010 Edinburgh Comedy Award might be a restless spirit on stage, but his number one priority is the…

Kathleen Jamie - Sightlines

Uneven collection of nature essays heightened by the author's passion and outrage

24 Apr 2012

(Sort Of Books) Kathleen Jamie’s collection of essays has the potential to be a remarkable study of nature and human existence within it. Unfortunately, it isn’t until two thirds of the way into Sightlines that Jamie begins to emerge as an engaging…

Jackie Kay - Reality, Reality

A short story outing with some beautiful moments but overall patchy quality

24 Apr 2012

(Picador) In the wake of 2010’s fantastic memoir Red Dust Road and last year’s poetry collection Fiere, this short story outing has some beautiful moments in it, and Jackie Kay’s trademark compassion for her characters is intact, but the quality of…

Iain Banks - Stonemouth

The spiritual follow-up to The Crow Road is slightly flawed, but still a page-turner

27 Mar 2012

For those Iain Banks fans not overly keen on his sci-fi work, it will be a blessed relief to see no mention of a middle initial ‘M’ in his name here. For those who loved the prickly relationships and family machinations in the smalltown Scotland of The…

Mark Millar & Leinil Francis Yu - Superior

The Kick-Ass creator's latest ponders what superpowers would mean to those who needed them most

16 Mar 2012

(Titan) Glasgow writer Mark Millar has really picked up the pace on his creator-owned series over the last few years, but what’s more remarkable is how high the quality has remained. Wanted, Kick-Ass and Nemesis were action blockbusters but Superior…

Juli Zeh - The Method

A riveting intellectual and emotional thriller set in a dystopian future

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…

Team Girl Comic #4

Ragtag Glasgow-based publication providing feminist balance in the world of comics

28 Feb 2012

Team Girl Comic is a Glasgow collective of artists and illustrators breathing fresh feminist air into the underground comic scene. A lo-fi zine featuring a pic’n’mix of cartoons and drawings by women of all backgrounds and ages, TGC was set up as a…

Tom Perrotta - The Leftovers

The measured delivery of this fantastical story results in impeccable satire

28 Feb 2012

(Fourth Estate) Tom Perrotta’s measured new novel proves that even with the most fantastical story, you don’t have to be flashy to hit your nail right on its head. The Leftovers is about a half-cocked Rapture in which believers and atheists alike…

John Lanchester - Capital

A well-observed ensemble story that lacks momentum

28 Feb 2012

(Faber) Pepys Road is the setting for a slowly unfurling whodunit, where residents of the posh London suburb must work out who is harassing them. It begins with an innocuous postcard, stating, ‘We Want What You Have’. Things get progressively more…

Johanna Skibsrud - This Will be Difficult to Explain and other stories

Short story collection fails to meet the medium's strict demands

28 Feb 2012

(Heinemann) Time is not on the short story’s side. There are no leisurely chapters in which to manufacture a slow build to a devastating denouement; no space to take us on a character’s full-length journey. To succeed, therefore, a short story has to…

John O'Farrell - The Man Who Forgot His Wife

Mildly diverting rom-com novel from the Spitting Image writer

28 Feb 2012

(Doubleday) What would we make of our partners if our memories were wiped and we spied them anew? This question loiters, doe-eyed, at the heart of John O’Farrell’s retrograde amnesia rom-com, The Man Who Forgot His Wife. It’s a light-hearted…

Electric Man

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

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?

Compendium of the Dutch cartoonist’s satirical alternative comics

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

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

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…

Helen Schulman - This Beautiful Life

Slightly outdated family drama that retains some timeliness and authenticity

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

Unsuccessful comic book crossover attempt from the Dandy Warhols frontman

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

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

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…