Fiction

Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap touched a few raw nerves

He tells us how he tackled this multi-story tale.

Judge me once you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, the old saying goes. Well in his latest book, The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas hands us the literary equivalent of eight pairs of walking boots. Set in suburban Melbourne, the novel opens with a chapter devoted…

Philip Pullman - The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ

'The Most Dangerous Author in Britain' comes to the Book Festival

You will know him by the horns, of course, and the casual air of unholy sin. For Philip Pullman is the anti-God and ‘The Most Dangerous Author in Britain’, according to the modern gospel of The Mail on Sunday. To most of us, however, he is the avuncular…

James Robertson - And the Land Lay Still

One of Scotland's most vital authors tackles our Q&A

James Robertson has been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize of 2006 for The Testament of Gideon Mack and has just published And The Land Lay Still.

Laura Barton talks about Twenty-One Locks

The author describes why and how she wanted to write her novel

Born and raised in Lancashire, Laura Barton migrated south a decade ago, and found gainful employment with The Guardian. ‘I started writing a music column [Hail, Hail, Rock ‘n’ Roll] in a style that was quite different to most journalism at the time,…

Garth Nix kicks off this year's Book Festival

What he has in store and why fantasy is making a comeback

Garth Nix, the bestselling Australian author of young people’s fantasy fiction, is both honoured and alarmed that he’ll be kicking off this year’s Book Festival with its very first session. ‘I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be talking about yet!’ Nix…

Alberto Manguel will discuss All Men Are Liars

And why we should step back from the over-reliable narrator

Alberto Manguel’s latest book, All Men Are Liars, is ‘a tribute to falsehood’ in which no one is a reliable source; not the enigmatic figure whose death is being investigated, not those who knew him, nor Manguel himself. It’s a concept that challenges…

Top five Scottish crime writers to catch at the EIBF

The city that embodies vice and virtue welcomes the authors

With its Jekyll and Hyde nature, Edinburgh is the perfect spot for the portraiturists of good and evil to congregate. Here’s a quintet of Scottish scribes to catch this week Tony Black. Gus Drury is Black’s flawed bobby and in Long Time Dead, he’s…

Albanian Ismael Kadare's newest: The Accident

The author obliquely examines his homeland's paradocixal nature

Albania’s foremost literary writer and winner of the Man Booker International Prize has spent his career examining his homeland’s paradoxical nature. This latest offering from Ismael Kadare does the same but more obliquely, with a central premise that’s…

Jill McGivering - The Last Kestrel

Novels published, August 2010

(Blue Door) A debut novel about two women, a British reporter who returns to Helmand to search for the truth concerning the death of a friend, and an Afghan determined to protect her only son.

Ian Holding - Of Beasts and Beings

Novels published, August 2010

(Simon & Schuster) A novel about two men in Africa, one having been seized by militia, the other a schoolteacher in a city stricken by fear and intimidation.

Monique Truong - Bitter in the Mouth

Novels published, August 2010

(Chatto) Linda Hammerick is a young woman growing up in North Carolina during the 70s and 80s before escaping to the north in this Southern Gothic tale.

Annabel Lyon - The Golden Mean

Novels published, August 2010

(Atlantic) Canada-based short story writer with a reimagining of the relationship between Aristotle and Alexander, who later had ‘The Great’ added to his name.

Helon Habila - Oil on Water

Novels published, August 2010

(Hamish Hamilton) Two Nigerian journos search for the kidnapped wife of a British oil engineer, and in the process uncover corruption and violence.

Lin Anderson - The Reborn

(Hodder) A baby sliced from the womb in a fairground hall of mirrors; Jeff Coulter, a charming psychopath luring girls into a pact of sex and murder while he creates baby dolls from his prison cell for bereaved parents; dark, disturbing rituals; the…

Howard Jacobson - The Finkler Question

(Bloomsbury) Fans of Howard Jacobson’s skilfully constructed storytelling will not be surprised to hear that his latest work seems to centre around male-female relationships, a theme the London-based writer has explored often. But as The Finkler…

Jeff Lemire - Sweet Tooth

(Titan/Vertigo) It’s hardly surprising that Jeff Lemire’s current ongoing series (the first five issues of which are collected here) should be a bleak, post-apocalyptic yarn that recalls, among other precedents, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Lemire…

Louise Dean - The Old Romantic

(Fig Tree) There’s plenty of mileage to be had, both in terms of pathos and comedy, from the subject matter of death. Sadly, this tepid novel fails to capitalise on its dark premise, being neither moving nor funny, despite trying for both. Ken is an…

Jerry Della Femina - From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor

(Canongate) ‘I know guys who would make you fly Nazi Airlines in a minute or get you to pack your voodoo kit for a little trip to Haiti,’ declares self-styled mad man Jerry Della Femina, in this re-release of the rambling 1970s cult classic. Although…

Ned Beauman - Boxer Beetle

(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…

Gilbert Shelton - Not Quite Dead: Last Gig in Shnagrlig

(Knockabout) Gilbert Shelton will always be most famous for his irreverent take on hippie culture as beloved by stoners across the world in his Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers strips and its off-shoot, Fat Freddy’s Cat. And among his other achievements…

Maile Chapman - Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto

(Jonathan Cape) Crackling with a fitful nervous energy, Maile Chapman’s novel is the arrestingly titled Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto. It concerns a convalescent hospital set among Finnish pinewoods in the 1920s, harbouring women with…

Simon Rich - Elliot Allagash

(Serpent’s Tail) As the debut novel from Saturday Night Live’s youngest ever writer, Elliot Allagash fulfils expectations. A hilariously satiric novel peppered with innovative anecdotes, the narrative may be simple but the comedy is fast-paced and…

Jeffery Deaver book signing

Get your copies signed of yet another breakneck-paced bestseller by the ex-journo, attorney and folk singer. The Burning Wire features an attack on the Manhattan electricity grid with more promised. Our heroic double act, Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs…

Alice Thompson - The Existential Detective

(Two Ravens Press) When a work opens, as The Existential Detective does, with the lyrics to Pat Ballard’s ‘Mister Sandman’, followed by an extract from ‘The Sandman’ by ETA Hoffmann, you just know it’s going to be spine-chilling. And this is Alice…

Mike Mignola gets back to the drawing board with Abe Sapien, Hellboy and BPRD

Miles Fielder chats to writer and artist Mike Mignola about the expanding world of his demonic offspring and literally getting back to the drawing board