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|author= Tahi SaihatePolly Barton|title= Astral SeasonWhat Am I, Beastly SeasonA Deer?|rating= 3.54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We long Polly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. The narrator, newly relocated from London to Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the process of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a new audience. Barton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, in striving for our past even though it universality, language is endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. From this, the novel opens out into a place wider, resonant question: to which what extent do we can never return. Tahi Saihatetranslate ourselves in order to be understood, accepted, in or loved?|isbn=1804272175}}{{Frontpage|author=Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Disappearing Act|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Despite her debut novel ''Astral Seasonanonymisation of place names and people, Beastly SeasonStepanova'' illustrates how these rose-tinted glasses often lies message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. Her novel A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the town of F for a literary festival she is to be a meditation on youth guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and how nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Swept up in this series of events, M eventually offers to step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the things we do show. The train functions as a teenager can seem intensely important motif of transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and often life-alteringa retreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn= 19162771011804272329

|authorisbn=Laura Imai Messina295967572X|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens

|summary= In Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the northeast purpose of Japanthis journey is, in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box in his gardenis uncertain. Django found the tickets ''Inside there is an old black, telephone, disconnected, that carries voices into on the wind.floor somewhere'' It is a real place, a necessary place, and I am pleased has persuaded our narrator to see accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the IMPORTANT NOTE that past as the author attaches pair travel to her story, that the place station by coach and the train is not a tourist destination, it is a sacred place, a place that must be left to those who really need itsteam locomotive.|isbn=178658039X

|author=Amin MaaloufMakenna Goodman|title=The DisorientedHelen of Nowhere

|summary= Adam has lived It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in Paris for yearsyour life is not quite right. The protagonist, speaks French more easily than a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his native Arabiccareer and his relationship, embodies this feeling. In fact he hasn't been back to However, Goodman counteracts his homeland for 25 yearsdiscomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. An old friend The connection between Helen and the protagonist is dying…or as Adam prefers to think indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of him the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a former-friendvolta in his life, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-friend, or maybeher past tied to his potential fresh start. The falling out was a long time agorealtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and Adamdescribes her as ''s partner has no idea what it was aboutan entity that is pure consciousness, even so she urges him to go knowing that hebeyond form''ll regret not doing so. Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants toAlthough she lives in an assisted living facility now, or simply because he was asked, he's on Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the next planesense are not altogether innocuous. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY1804272205

|author=Joanne M HarrisOlga Tokarczuk|title=A Pocketful House of CrowsDay, House of Night

|genre= Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= I have always been ''What's the good of the mind a world that keeps changing like that once you? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night're above picture', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities -book level and before you get the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to graphic sex & violencenight, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, there stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is no difference between books for children and books for adultsperceived. There are good books and poor ones. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones. |isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|author=Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Tower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''A Pocketful How unctuous are the fats of Crowsanother's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream'' is clearly aimed at . In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the younger readers protagonist of this tale. Just as witness T's story is being told, the use story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the middle initial daughter of a wealthy family in the author19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's name to differentiate from her adult offersimagination. Ignore that if you have loved anything from Annie''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris s fate is mistress of the modern fairy tale, above all, an enticing story to T. This It is no differenta story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. It is an utter delight.|isbn=14732221841804271799

|author=Frederic Beigbeder Jon Fosse and Frank Wynne Damion Searls (translator)|title=A Life Without EndVaim

|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon'All was strange''. And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's This haunting phrase encapsulates the extent pervading sense of my mid-life crisisotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, Jatgeir and they end up with a childEline, which is at least a way two of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on goingprotagonists caught in its melancholic current. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=16428606701804271829

|author= Maryse CondéClaire-Louise Bennett|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a post- world: post-colonialismkiss, post-modernismusually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, post truth. The list goes onbecomes evidence of love lost. There are numerous works that utilise When the prefix post- in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novelnarrator cries out internally, ''The Wondrous come over here and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivanakiss me,'', Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to which it latched itselfconfirm her emotional numbness. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in GuadeloupeThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, a French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and move overseasher ex-partner, the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=16428606971804271934

|author= Ukamaka OlisakweHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightLili is Crying|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new First published in 1953 in French, this novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at timeless text which wrenches the trauma hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and heartache of being a woman in 1980s Nigeria. The title is ''Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right''. Ogadinma is sentences from their proper position on the eponymous heroine of the story.. We are with her in every scene page and it is her narrative voice that leads the storypositions them elsewhere, disjointed, although Olisakwe writes in third persontruncated. This provides a sense of detachment for the reader and highlights Like the isolation lives of Ogadinma. She is exiled from her father's home and sent to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escapecharacters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=19116481601804271675

|author=Elliot ReedJonathan Buckley|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingOne Boat

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This ''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the story reader into a contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the evocative backdrop of a young boysmall coastal Greek town, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the death of his mother and his father's abandonmentboth her parents. HoweverPrompted by her mourning, it isn't told in the usual her narrative way. Insteadvoice is meditative and deeply self-aware, inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is made up fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|isbn=1804271764}}{{Frontpage|author=Eowyn Ivey|title=Black Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of glossary entriesBirdie, written by Williamthe young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a way bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of describing certain eventsEmaleen. Described as a ''wild card'', situations she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and emotionslive on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. It runs alphabeticallyWhen she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn and solitary man, starting with ABSENCEwho says he has a cabin over there, then moving she feels called to ALPHABETICAL ORDERgo - and bring Emaleen with her. As I began to read I did find myself thinking Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|isbn=1472279042}} {{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what on earth?!' but I soon grew used they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the stylefraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, and was instead caught up a successful lawyer living in WilliamDublin. Following their father's storypassing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=19115454180571365469

|author= Karina Sainz Borgo and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title= It Would Be Night in CaracasWhite Nights|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction Short Stories|summary= ''It Would Be Night As always in Caracas'' illuminates Dostoyevsky, the everyday horrors of modern day Venezuelacharacter work is sublime. It begins with the death of Adelaida Falcon's mother One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and chronicles Adelaida's coming to terms temperaments with her new solitude in this world and her attempts to escape itremarkable clarity. Danger stalks the shadows and, in a society where the establishment is crumbling, who can you turn to? |isbn=00629368670241619785}}

|isbnauthor=1471186393James Baldwin|title=Photographer of the Lost|author=Caroline ScottGiovanni's Room

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=May 1921''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. Edie receives a photograph through While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the postdeeper conflict within himself. There It is no letter or note David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with itGiovanni. There is nothing written on |isbn=0141186356}}{{Frontpage|author=Alba de Cespedes |title=Forbidden Notebook|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the back of moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the photographmost intimate and revealing ways. It |isbn=1782278222}}{{Frontpage|author=Ottessa Moshfegh|title=My Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At best, this novel is a picture scathing critique of her husbandmodern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, Francispredictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. Francis has been missing for four years. TechnicallyThis unlikely heroine, a slim, he has been "missingattractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, believed killed" but that is resolves not something that a young widow can believe. She hangs on the word 'missing'to lose sleep over it: in fact, disbelieving the word killedher solution lies in her hibernation.|isbn=1784707422

|isbnauthor=1509896465Matthew Tree|title=The Nightjar|author=Deborah HewittWe'll Never Know

|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=''The Nightjar'' is an unusual and exciting story. Alice Timothy Wyndham lives wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and her life begins who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to unravel, fast. From that very momenthis studies, her life is flooded with magic, loss, expectation cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and particularly, betrayalset himself high but achievable ambitions. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must change. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself?|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8

{{Frontpage|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingisbn="15"B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.

<!-- Ann Patchett -->''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|-genre=Literary Fiction| stylesummary="width: 10%The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction[[image:1526614960.jpg|linksummary=http''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica://wwwtemperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins.amazon Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage.coMax takes after his father.uk/dp/1526614960/ref People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire North|title=House of Odysseus|rating=5|genre=nosimLiterary Fiction |summary= ''What could matter more than love?tag=thebookbag-21]]''

| style="verticalTold from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-align: top; textold narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-align: left;"consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{Frontpage|author=Michael Grothaus|title=Beautiful Shining People|rating=[[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett]]=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''

[[image:5star''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance.jpgOf what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|linkisbn=Category:{191458564X}}{{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Saint|title=Atalanta|rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:=5|genre=Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]summary=''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta''

When we first meet Danny and his elder sister, Maeve Conroy, they're both living at The Dutch House with their parents and under the gaze of the portraits of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the wallsPrincess. It's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant and the closest Danny seems to come to him is when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family ownsWarrior. Elna Conroy is loving, but absent increasingly often until the point comes when the children are told that she will not be returningLover. In other circumstances this might have affected Maeve and Danny deeply, but their primary relationship is with each otherHero. It's a bond which only death will break. [[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett|Full Review]]

<!Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|isbn=1472292154}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanthi Harris|title=Beautiful Place|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|isbn=1784631930}}{{Frontpage|isbn=178563335X|title=Sea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year- Tove Jansson old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in->law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - and she's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.}}{{Frontpage|-isbn=1398515388| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)[[image:0954899520|rating=4.jpg5|linkgenre=http://wwwGeneral Fiction|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown.amazon The result was complete and utter devastation.co The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread.uk/dp/0954899520/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami -21]]Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.}}

| style="vertical''Walter stood waist-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson]]===deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them.''

[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland How is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be. [[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Jansson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0954221710.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954221710/ref=nosiman opening?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Literary Fiction]] Tove Jansson's short novel about Summer is several worlds away from the Moomintrolls she is most famous for outside her native Scandinavia. Book yourself an afternoon this Summer, and take yourself and The Summer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight and sound of the sea, settle back and prepare to be transported. [[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Sedgwick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788542347.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788542347/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] This is a deep, interesting read unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The novel's story follows a young man named Ash in the process of joining a community of sick people in the curiously named town of Snowflake, Arizona. These people are sick, but it's not a sickness you've heard of. Instead, they're environmentally ill – affected by household chemicals and fabrics, pesticides, static electricity, and radiation – and their only ''cure'' is to stay in the town away from the real world. Though it's about a real place, the people in it are fictional. It really is a place apart, quite literally cut off from the outside world – people are even required to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integrated. [[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick|Full Review]] <!-- Mulligan -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1784742716.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784742716/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] I came to this book thinking I knew just what to expect, even though it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|the author's]] debut in the adult novel market (hence the more mature name – he used to be an Andy). I thought it simple to sum up, the tale of a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in the most pleasant way. I hadn't opened it when I'd shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness. More fool me. [[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan|Full Review]] <!-- Anstruther -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1784631647.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784631647/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Enid Campbell was a woman who, on the face form of it, had everything. Leading the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour, glamourous locales and high expectations. Only Enid's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated and threatening both Enid interconnected short stories goes from succinct and those close laconic to her. After losing custody of her children, Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of greed, or an act of desperation? Exploring the true story of her own grandmother, Eleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, moving and beautifully well written debut. [[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther|Full Review]] <!-- Laguna -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:191070962X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/191070962X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Choke by Sofie Laguna]]=== [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] There's a dull, dispiriting pang of disappointment that comes when you try something everyone else loves wistful and find out that you're really not into it. Coffee. Ice skating. A new Netflix series. Books are like thatmusing, but doubly so. [[The Choke by Sofie Laguna|Full Review]] <!-- Varenne -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0857058738.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857058738/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of turning on a theme parksixpence. Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete FergusonAnd author Marco North, who bristles at has the indignity of white man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can most wonderful turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying to find this book's version of Utopiaphrase, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets starts as he means to keep them go on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Kan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1911115847.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911115847/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Literary Fiction| Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] ''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope. [[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan|Full Review]]