Books, Doug Johnstone

Glen Neath - The Fat Plan

17 Jul 2008

FICTION (Portobello) The trouble with writing a novel satirising the mundanity of life and the mind numbing tedium of bureaucracy is, well, it risks being mundane and tedious. This second minimalist novel from Neath aims at the likes of Beckett…

Daren King

5 Jun 2008

Daren King lives in a strange world. Not in real life, you understand, for there he lives in Dublin because of the generous tax breaks for writers, which is perfectly normal and not at all strange. No, the strangeness of Daren King is in his head and on…

Véronique Ovaldé - Kick the Animal Out

22 May 2008

FAMILY DRAMA (Portobello) For this French writer’s fourth novel (but first in translation), we are in the head of 15-year-old Rose, a girl who spends much of her time on her apartment’s roof terrace wearing a cape and playing with her rabbits. Rose…

James Kelman - Kieron Smith, Boy

24 Apr 2008

POST-WAR NOVEL (Hamish Hamilton) James Kelman doesn’t have a reputation for writing easy-to-read books. Not necessarily a bad thing, since often the most rewarding fiction is the most demanding. Compared to his last two novels, Translated Accounts and…

Andrew Drummond - Elephantina

24 Apr 2008

HISTORICAL TALE (Polygon) Scottish author Andrew Drummond has a strong reputation for writing comedic historical novels, and while this third book covers similar territory, it seems thinner on substance than his previous outings. Purporting to be the…

Salman Rushdie - The Enchantress of Florence

27 Mar 2008

RENAISSANCE NOVEL (Jonathan Cape) There is much to admire in this ornate, complex Renaissance romp from Salman Rushdie, but when one of the main characters declares at one point: ‘A curse on all storytellers’, it’s hard not to agree, at least in part.

Aye Write! - Alistair Findlay

28 Feb 2008

On the face of it, football and poetry are not obvious bedfellows. The Tartan Army enjoy a good singalong but they’re not renowned for their linguistic prowess or their gentle poetic insights. Likewise, you can’t imagine a Poets XI mastering the 4-5-1…

Mark Everett interview

Family plot

31 Jan 2008

When Mark Oliver Everett was nine years old and home alone, a plane crashed in his neighbourhood. Stumbling outside, he wandered through the carnage of burning wreckage and body parts before returning to his house. ‘Just another day in my weird life,…

Mark Wernham - Martin Martin’s on the Other Side

17 Jan 2008

FUTURISTIC DRAMA (Jonathan Cape) Comparing a book to A Clockwork Orange and 1984 in the press release is a risky tactic, and one which backfires on this underwhelming debut. In the near future, we’re in the company of Jensen Interceptor, a…

Jon Ronson

15 Nov 2007

COLLECTED JOURNALISM What I Do (Picador) I’ve mostly avoided Jon Ronson in the past, mainly because of an irrational fear of his ultra-liberal-looking potato-head, and witnessing an early simpering appearance of his on late-night Channel 4. So…

Rosemary Goring (Ed)

Scotland: The Autobiography (Viking)

18 Oct 2007

Frankly, I’m not usually one for tomes about the past, but this remarkable and ambitious piece of work is no ordinary history book. An incredibly diverse collection of writings spanning 2000 years, it tells the story of this country through the people…

Divisadero

Michael Ondaatje

20 Sep 2007

Best known for The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje provides another trademark non-linear narrative, attempting to create a whole out of disparate story strands, but with rather limited success. On a Californian farm, Anna, adopted sister Claire and…

Ian Rankin interview

6 Sep 2007

So this is the end, then. Well, perhaps not quite. Exit Music, the much trumpeted latest work from Ian Rankin sees his world famous cynical copper Detective Inspector Rebus handing in his warrant card for the last time and retiring permanently to the…

Craig Davidson

23 Aug 2007

Craig Davidson doesn’t pull any punches. We might as well get the terrible boxing pun out the way at the start, because his debut novel, The Fighter, is a brutally violent but brilliantly written tale set in the world of underground bare-knuckle…

Billy Brag

16 Aug 2007

Billy Bragg was described by The Times as ‘a national treasure’. That particular phrase would surely bring a wry smile to his face, not least because the topic currently vexing the lifelong political campaigner and singer-songwriter is the fundamental…

Katrin Himmler

9 Aug 2007

Katrin Himmler was born into a family with a dark history, but has only now been able to write about it. She tells Doug Johnstone about reliving the past

Iain Banks

Getting climate change into a family saga

9 Aug 2007

Iain Banks can probably be accused of many things, but lack of imagination isn’t one of them. While most of his outlandish ideas get channelled into his sci-fi work, there’s still plenty of inventive stuff to be found in his mainstream novels.

All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well

16 Jul 2007

DEBUT NOVEL TOD WODICKA All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well (Jonathan Cape) What an exceptionally odd yet utterly compelling debut novel this is, quite unlike the typical…

Gifted

18 Jun 2007

COMING OF AGE DRAMA The phenomenon of mathematical child prodigies is fascinating. First-time novelist Nikita Lalwani makes just such a character the centrepiece of her assured debut, as we grow up with Rumi, brought up in Cardiff by Indian parents.

No One Belongs Here More Than You

21 May 2007

SHORT STORIES I’ll admit, I feared this book. A debut collection of short stories from an LA-based performance artist and indie filmmaker? Surely it’s going to be all pointlessly quirky characters, self-obsessed existential ennui and vacuous…

Joshua Spassky

Gwendoline Riley

23 Apr 2007

EXISTENTIAL TALE Young Mancunian writer Gwendoline Riley is much-praised in literary circles, but it’s hard to see why from this turgid sliver of immature existential angst. A young female novelist from Manchester (hmmm) and an older American…

Day

Al Kennedy

26 Mar 2007

LITERARY NOVEL AL Kennedy’s latest creation, Alfred Day, finds his purpose through the Second World War, enjoying a sense of camaraderie as tail-gunner in a bomber crew. His narrative switches between this time and 1949, when a broken Day is trying…

Michael Weinreb

The Kings of New York (Yellow Jersey)

12 Mar 2007

SPORT Chess attracts both child prodigies and general oddballs, both of which can be found in abundance in this well-constructed and intriguing book about American’s top high school chess team. The Edward R Murrow School in Brooklyn is an…

Ballads of the Book

WORDS & MUSIC

27 Feb 2007

Projects like Ballads of the Book don’t come along very often. And, looking at the roll call of writers and musicians involved, it is easy to see why. It must have been a logistical nightmare getting 54 of Scotland’s finest writers and musicians…

William McIlvanney interview

The big man

12 Feb 2007

The publication of William McIlvanney’s novel Weekend was like welcoming an old friend home after a very long holiday, and finding that the time away has left them in extremely rude health.

Christopher Rush

Hellfire and Herring (Profile)

19 Dec 2006

CHILDHOOD MEMOIR Christopher Rush’s previous work has been widely acclaimed with his travelogue-memoir To Travel Hopefully being lauded on publication last year, and his novel, A Twelvemonth and a Day, making it into this publication’s 100 Best…

A year in the life of Canongate

Turning over a new leaf

11 Dec 2006

2006 has proven to be a tumultuous year for Scotland’s leading independent publisher Canongate. On the plus side, the company became the first Scottish publisher ever to have two novels on the Booker shortlist, Kate Grenville’s The Secret River and…

Patrick McCabe

Winterwood (Bloomsbury)

11 Nov 2006

RURAL DRAMA Award-winning novelist Patrick McCabe is known for his darkly violent books which mine the disturbing underbelly of rural Ireland, a setting he knows well from his own upbringing. Winterwood is no exception, telling the story of Redmond…

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…

Billy Bragg

The Progressive Patriot (Bantam)

12 Oct 2006

SOCIAL HISTORY Billy Bragg has been so outspoken over the years that it comes as a surprise that this is his first ever book. Conceived as a reaction to the rise of the BNP in his hometown of Barking and the 7 July bombings, this is a heartfelt yet…

The Cutting Room - Louise Welsh (2002)

1 Jan 2005

A host of successful new authors has sprung from Glasgow University’s highly productive creative writing course over the last few years, with Louise Welsh at the front of the pack. The Cutting Room was Welsh’s 2002 debut novel and it is a book that has…

The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks (1984)

1 Jan 2005

They say that often an author's debut novel is his or her most autobiographical. Well if that's the case, heaven help Iain Banks. The Wasp Factory created a stushie amongst bamboozled literary critics who didn't know how to take this coruscating…