Fiction

Also Published: Short-story paperbacks

Keeping it brief

Janice Galloway - Collected Stories, Sarah Waters - Dancing With Mr Darcy, Annie Proulx - Fine Just the Way It Is, Catherine O'Flynn - Roads Ahead, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - The Thing Around Your Neck

Requiem Vampire Knight: Resurrection & Danse Macabre/Dracula & The Vampires Ball by Pat Mills and Oliver Ledroit

Veteran British comics writer Pat Mills takes us into hell as Requiem Vampire Knight finally gets printed in English. Originally released in France where, much like the rest of Europe, there’s a burgeoning comics scene that isn’t obsessed with…

James Lovelock - The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning

He has been likened to ‘an Old Testament prophet’ by John Carey, identified as the creator of an ‘evil religion’ by biologist John Maynard Smith, and labelled a writer of ‘pop-ecology literature’ by Richard Dawkins. James Lovelock, veteran scientist and…

Sue Townsend - Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years

(Michael Joseph) Reneging on her statement that 2004’s Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction would be the final Mole book, Sue Townsend has returned to her most enduring creation in his 39th (and a quarter) year. That he’s back at all is…

Anne Rice - Angel Time

(Chatto & Windus) Occasionally a book comes along that is so mind-bogglingly dreadful that it’s hard to find the words to describe the depths of its naff, cliché-ridden banality. But let’s give it a go. This is the start of a new fictional series…

Interview: John Irving

Exploring the tragedy and death of the American author's work

In the closing chapter of John Irving’s epic new novel, Last Night in Twisted River, a character struggles to find the opening line for his latest book. He agonises over it for a morning, then puts it to one side – and 24 hours later hits pay…

Only Connect: Gordon Burn

We pay tribute to the late author and journalist

When Gordon Burn died in July, he left behind a shocked and saddened literary community. In the obituaries, Val McDermid wrote of his work as ‘a masterclass in engagement with society’; Richard T Kelly dubbed him one of the country’s ‘foremost prose…

First Word: Ryan David Jahn

We give our questions to the exciting, young American writer

First record you ever bought I ordered three at once from a mail-order catalogue. The Beatles’ Revolver, Nirvana’s Bleach, and Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet. I didn’t exactly buy them, however: when the bill arrived I ignored it. Last…

Jealousy by Catherine Millet

The success of her 2002 memoir, The Sexual Life of Catherine M, propelled French art critic Catherine Millet into the spotlight as one of Europe’s most celebrated contemporary sexual libertines. Indeed, this blisteringly honest dissection of her…

Kevin Jackson - Bite

Less than filling vampire handbook

The symbolic breadth and depth of the vampire has long been the cultural analyst’s wet nightmare. Blood-suckers have variously stood for capitalist tyranny, dictatorial communism, Freudian repression, drug addiction, social Darwinism and sexuality in…

Lost World by Patricia Melo

Casually brutal and utterly uncompromising, this Brazilian noir thriller is nerve-shreddingly compelling from start to grizzly finish. A sequel to The Killer, Patricia Melo’s 1995 novel, Lost World picks up the story of amoral ex-contract killer Maiquel…

Eddie Campbell

The comic artist/writer brings his life's work together

Glasgow-born, Brisbane-based Eddie Campbell is best known for illustrating From Hell, his and writer Alan Moore’s exhaustive graphic novel investigation of the Jack the Ripper murders. It’s the Oz-based ex-pat’s autobiographical comics, however, that…

Also published: Books

It'd be criminal to miss out on these

Stieg Larsson The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest The third volume of the bestselling Millenium Trilogy has Lisbeth Salander fighting corruption as she is set to face trial for three murders. Maclehose Press. Ruth Rendell The Monster in the…

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneger

Disappointing ghost story from The Time Traveller's Wife author

Like her debut novel The Time Traveller’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger’s new offering requests from her readers some suspension of disbelief. When bookseller Elspeth dies, she leaves her plush Highgate flat to her American twin nieces, the daughters of her…

Nick Hornby - Juliet, Naked

(Viking) Never meet your heroes, we are told, they’re bound to be a disappointment. But what happens when you’re going for a run in a dead-end English seaside town and you bump into an ex-girlfriend who introduces you to your all-time, number one icon?

Val McDermid - Fever of the Bone

Staying true to gruesome form, the first murder in the Fife crime novelist’s latest slice of Tartan Noir could’ve been committed in 1880s Whitechapel. After the body of a young girl is found with her genitals removed, psychological profiler Tony Hill…

Trust Me by Peter Leonard

Elmore's son serves up his second crime thriller

Having crime-writing legend Elmore Leonard as your dad is a lot to live up to, but with this bristling second fiction outing, son Peter almost keeps up the family name. Set in Detroit, with a cast of hapless, amoral baddies, his relentlessly-paced noir…

Off the Page

Stirling's book festival

Book lovers are set for a treat this month as a flurry of leading authors make the trip to Stirling. A week-long jamboree of literary lovelies, this year’s line-up includes Ian Rankin, Rodge Glass and ex-WPC Karen Campbell. The kids should be kept…

First Word: Jeffery Deaver

The American mystery and murder author waxes lyrical

First record you ever bought The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Last time you were chatted up I had a marriage proposal from a woman I’d never met about two years ago at a bookstore in New York City. Does that count as chatting up? I declined.

Top 5: Authors You'll Have Seen on Telly

Charlotte Square's more recognisable faces

Pauline McLynn It’s probably the kind of thing that really irks an author trying to break out from the shell of their most recognisable role, but with McLynn, all you can really think about is Mrs Doyle determinedly offering a cup of tea with the words…

Jason Donald

Opening doors in other people’s memories

‘The reaction to Choke Chain has been positive and often emotional,’ says Glasgow-based author Jason Donald, whose first novel was published earlier this year. His debut is a tender, at times uncomfortable, coming-of-age tale of two brothers growing up…

Iain Banks - Transition

Iain Banks’ words have a habit of getting inside your head with certain phrases, ideas and characters left tunnelling their way into the consciousness long after you’ve put his books down. Latest offering Transition is no different. While his writing…

Top 5 Things To Do This Week

Bloody Beetroot (clubs), Inglourious Basterds (film), Emergent Artists (Visual Art), Soulsavers (music), Christopher Brookmyre (books)

John Aberdein - Strip the Willow

Think you can handle pressure? Try following an award-winning debut. John Aberdein kept a cool head when it came to writing Strip the Willow however, despite the huge anticipation for the novel as a result of excellent first offering Amande’s Bed. ‘Some…

Rebecca Gowers

‘How you write about a woman somewhere in her 20s without being labeled chick-lit, I don’t know,’ says Rebecca Gowers, frustrated by the fact that her novels are so often lumped into the genre of pastel-covered books all about modern ladies cooing over…