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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary fiction=Fiction|summary=Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer JohnstonMakenna Goodman|title=ShadowstoryHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Polly grows up in an AngloIt could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-Irish family place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the years following World War IIbrink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. Her father died in The connection between Helen and the warprotagonist is indirect yet intimate. Her mother sends As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her off past tied to spend school holidays with his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her grandparents at Kildarraghas ''an entity that is pure consciousness, a great house beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the countryside, far away from Dublinreader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755383478</amazonuk>1804272205
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fabrice HumbertOlga Tokarczuk|title=The Origin House of Day, House of ViolenceNight|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Fabrice Humbert's French Orange Prize winning 'The Origin of ViolenceWhat' has a young French teacher as a narrator who, while leading a school trip to Buchenwald concentration camp, sees a photograph s the good of a Jewish prisoner taken in 1941 and is struck by the similarity in appearance of the man to his own father. However, he discovers world that not only does the man in the photo have a different name to his, but the man died in 1942. Clearly there are dark family secrets afoot keeps changing like that he sets about discovering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687500</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Helen Gordon|title=Landfall|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary='Most people at ? How can one time or another of their lives get a feeling that they must kill themselves; as a rule they get over go on calmly living in it in a day or two' (?'How Girls Can Build Up The Empire: the handbook for Girl Guides' 1912)
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Conny BraamThea Lenarduzzi|title=The Cocaine Salesman|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Picture a world of hellish exclusion, nightmarish noise and images, and horrid violence. Picture one person trying to live through the sleepless nights, the isolation among his peers, the permanent sense of dreadful threat. Picture him needing drugs. His best friend might even be called Charlie. But don't picture an inner city slum, 2012, but a man on the front in World War One.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907822054</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bruce Duffy|title=Disaster was my GodTower|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The life of Arthur Rimbaud must be one of the most outrageous in literary history, more scandalous than Wilde, more self-destructive than Malcolm Lowery, Rimbaud was the boy poet and iconoclast who took on the literary establishment at end of the nineteenth century and won. So Duffy's fictional account, based closely around 'How unctuous are the actual facts fats of Rimbaudanother's life, was bound to be an exciting and furious, and he doesnhow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''t disappoint. This is a difficult book to put down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685273</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=German SadulaevJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=I Am A Chechen!Vaim
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=That exclamation mark in ''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the title says a lot. It says that, pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in spite of everythingVaim, a fictional fishing village in spite of Sadulaev leaving his homelandNorway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, it still tugs at his heartstrings - and will probably do so throughout the rest two of his life. The short author's note at the beginning ends with the arresting sentence - ''Sadulaev's work has unleashed heated debate protagonists caught in Russia.'' And I'm thinking, brave author indeed and I also couldn't wait to find out what all the fuss was aboutits melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532352</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark MustianClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The GendarmeBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=There are times when you will want to shut 'The Gendarme' Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and just walk away from the despair distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and disgust that this account closeness, becomes evidence of genocide engenderslove lost. DonWhen the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me,''tit is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. Ultimately The imagined recipient of this tale of an old Turk revisiting his terrible past plea is both touching and important Xavier, her ex- an exploration of memory and forgiveness that shouldn't be missedpartner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1851688390</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Otto de KatHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=JuliaLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The book opens with Chris as an elderly man who First published in 1953 in French, this novel is nearing a timeless text which wrenches the end hearts of his life. Turn a its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page or two and he ispositions them elsewhere, in factdisjointed, deadtruncated. Suicide apparently. It's all very sad. He lived alone and a paid employee, his young driverLike the lives of her characters, found him in his study. 'Suicide for the posh' his driver thinks looking at the corpse. But we have to travel back down the decades to find out whythey are often left tragically incomplete. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050559</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Howard J Booth (editor)Jonathan Buckley|title=The Cambridge Companion to Rudyard KiplingOne Boat|rating=3.54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Rudyard Kipling, born in India in 1865''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, is still drawing the youngest ever Nobel literature laureate. He was reader into a prolific author contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and at protagonist, Teresa. Set against the turn evocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the century up magic of its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the first World War an immensely popular one. Even now he remains reason she has visited it after the most frequently quoted death of all English authors (with both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-aware, inviting the possible exception reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of Shakespeare) – albeit often taken out of contextthought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0521136636</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Padgett PowellEowyn Ivey|title=You and IBlack Woods Blue Sky
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I've often wondered how men and women 'Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of letters can pack it all in. People churn out a career Birdie, the young mother of fictiontoddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as well as reading all the classicsa bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and offering pages and pages her accidental neglect of diaries and letters on their deathEmaleen. Padgett Powell can get Described as a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to be a professor of books-day life, and therefore I assume is duty-bound yearns to read cross the Wolverine river and write lots, but still find time live on the North Fork to knock out novelsfulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, however short. It was only a few months ago I was reading ''The Interrogative Mood'' for strange, taciturn and solitary man, who says he has a review elsewherecabin over there, she feels called to go - and here is another new release from himbring Emaleen with her. Serpent's Tail Without realising it, this calling will cheat in 2012 by giving the British audience Powelltransform hers and Emaleen's debut novel, almost two decades oldlives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846688167</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Art SpiegelmanSally Rooney|title=MetaMAUSIntermezzo|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 they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights
|rating=5
|genre=Graphic NovelsShort Stories|summary=Before the Holocaust was turned into [[The Boy As always in Dostoyevsky, the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne|character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a child-like near-fable for all]], character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and before it was the focus of superb history books such as [[Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder|this]], it became a family saga of a father relating his experiences to a son, who then drew it all - featuring animals not humans - [[Maus by Art Spiegelman|Maus]]. To celebrate the twenty-five years since then, we have this brilliant look back at the creation of an equally brilliant volumetemperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670916838</amazonuk>0241619785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Javier MariasJames Baldwin|title=While the Women are SleepingGiovanni's Room
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction |summary=The first thing ''Giovanni's Room'' follows the trivially minded will note 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. While David is that this engaged to Hella, who is not travelling in Spain, the complete edition of While real tension in the Women are Sleeping, for novel arises not all the stories in from his infidelity but from the original Spanish volume are heredeeper conflict within himself. You might think thatIt is David's because some have been hived off for a future 'best crippling shame and denial of' compilation. But if this isn't the best of Javier Marias, then I don't know what ishis sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099553929</amazonuk>0141186356
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph HellerAlba de Cespedes |title=Catch 22Forbidden Notebook|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=At the heart This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the very black comedy that is ''Catch 22'' is Captain Yossarianmoment our protagonist, a World War II American bombardierValeria Cossati, who wants to survive purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the war. Flying repeated combat missions is undermining his sanity, most intimate and surely a mad man should be grounded? But if he asks to be grounded, he demonstrates an absolutely sane concern for his own safety. If he is sane, he can't be grounded. This, his doctor tells him, is catch 22revealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099529114</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas E KennedyOttessa Moshfegh|title=Falling SidewaysMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=43
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=KennedyAt best, although a New Yorker, has lived in Copenhagen for over twenty years so he'll have a good feel for the European slant on the this novel, I would think. It is one a scathing critique of four called the Copenhagen Quartet. The top brass, the movers modern society and reveals the shakers fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the 'Tank' are introduced to the reader one by one and have a whole chapter devoted to their individual livescynical, both professional predictable and privateslightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. So we get This unlikely heroine, a very good idea indeed of their homesslim, their neighbourhoodsattractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, their families and perhaps more importantlybut resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, their thoughts on the Tank and of their colleaguesher solution lies in her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408812398</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hari KunzruMatthew Tree|title=Gods Without MenWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Quite literally at the heart of Hari Kunzru's latest novel stands not a personTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, but strange geographical feature in the California desert - three large rocks known as 'The Pinnacles'. If you've ever looked at a feature of the landscape drunk and wonder what it has meant to those who have gone before, then you will find a similar stance here. Kunzru's episodic narrative takes in various points in time from 1775 to 2009 all chronic underachiever whose dreams of which centre around this rock structure which has had different meanings for different generations. There are echoes being exceptional at any of the past in each new version, but no more than that.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114311X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alice Hoffman|title=The Dovekeepers|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Set in the last desperate days before the Roman siege on Masada (70CE), the lives of four women collide his artistic passions all failed miserably and merge. They are Yael, the daughter of a Sicarii assassin; Revka, the wife of a gentle baker who witnessed her daughters' rape and murder; Aziza, raised as a boy with the skills had endless crises of a great warrior and Shirah, born in Alexandria to a mother well versed in ancient magicself confidence. All four have crossed the heartless desert on separate journeys So Tim applied himself to arrive at the last outpost against the Roman Legionhis studies, where 900 Jews held out for many, many months. Here they have little power cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and less hope, set himself high but each refuses to be a victim. All are harbouring deep secrets about their pasts, as they become the Masada's dovekeepers. With supplies dwindling and certain death drawing near, their uneasy bonds to each other strengthen as their truths are unveiled. They find an uneasy comfort that becomes true loyalty and empowerment. While few in their company survive to recount the tale, their story has lived on to haunt the deepest of memoriesachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857205420</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Irene NemirovskyB0C47LV1PC|title=The Wine of SolitudeFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Helene adores her father but hates her motherCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, who neglects her and sees her as nothing more than an inconvenience. She grows up with is the realisation that question should you make it? Or is the only way question if you did, would it land? The catch is that her mother can hurt her is to sack her French governess – the only person who has ever tried to give Helene a stable upbringinganswer for both could well be... The winds of war blow them all from a fictional Kiev, to a harsh St Petersburg and on to a snowy Finland to end up – finally – in France at the end of the First World War. Helene's father has made a lot of money from mining in Siberia but whilst the family might have money – ridiculous amounts of it – they have nothing elseno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185570</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John O'ConnellMosby Woods|title=The Baskerville Legacy: A NovelWhirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=1900, and a man on a ship coming back from The West isn't the Boer War to edit the Daily Express meets one of his heroes dominant force it once was. Nobody in the form of Arthur Conan Doyle. With similar experiences and interests yet different enough West is quite sure how to bounce off each other they take up mend this or even if mending it is the idea best course of collaborating on action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a plotpush for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. When they do fix on time to do soImagine then, it leads to literary prospects, which lead to there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a week's research together on Dartmoorman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, which leads to ''The Hound of right? Perhaps the Baskervilles''most valuable asset in history. But perhaps in a way Imagine then, that only one of them intendedthis man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907595465</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kenzaburo Oe0571379559|title=The Silent CryHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Featuring rioting and looting ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally 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 corporate supermarkets time, storms and anger against immigrantsfloods. Her husband, this is a timely reRichard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys -issue of Nobel Prize for Literature winner’s Kenzaburo Óe’s 1967 classic Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they'The Silent Cryre related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she' which was cited by the Nobel committee as s his key worknanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688078</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alistair MacLeodKay Chronister|title=No Great MischiefDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=No Great Mischief With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a novel which captures the essence robotic takeover, a world devoid of belonging and the need water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to be a part of onecathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures''s history. This by Kay Chronister is the story a new work of a small part post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of Clann Calum Ruadh, the people of Red Calum, emigrants to Canadafears that exist for humanity today. It sweeps from contemporary Toronto to evoke Cape Breton in the fifties and back to the clearances of Scottish history. MacLeod tells the tale with the dignity and stature of an ancient myth, holding up is a shocking novel that still manages to our gaze what it means to be a part of a race, a family and a placefind hope. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099283921</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=William GiraldiEric LaRocca|title=Busy MonstersThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=45|genre=General FictionHorror|summary=Charles Homar loves his GillianHorror taps into something primeval within us. He's proved it It is used as a way to us, if not to her, by going after her possessive, jealous state trooper of an ex with the intent to kill - if only ended up rescuing reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a cat instead. But lo and behold, she's declared she's off to discover the real love of her life - the giant squid. Failing to stop thisBig Bad'', Charlie spends too long with whether that is a Nessie obsessivehome invader, then goes on a hunt of his own - for Bigfootmonster or a ghost, all the whileit usually something tangible and, chapter by chapter, sending his narrative the end of the same to a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographicalstory, frivolous columnsbeatable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Colson Whitehead|title=Zone One|rating=4|genre=Horror|summary=To start, for once, with the bookEric LaRocca's style - this has probably the least dialogue of any book you'll read this year. 'The Trees Grew Because I Bled There are some comments from characters, but they're few and far between - as are those characters ' is not like that can actually speak. For we're It is a collection of short stories more interested in a devastated New York, later this centurythe horrors of illness, grief and our three main protagonists are cleaning up after a worldwide plague of zombieshumiliation. The active ones have mostly been gunned down by the military, but there Horrors that linger and are a few still locked away in hidden corners - as well as inactive ones, called stragglers, who seem stuck in one instant, whether finishing off their last office job for the millionth time, or like a ghost haunting a place relevant harder to themdefeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846555981</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michela Murgia and Silvester Mazzarella (Translator)Madelaine Lucas|title=AccabadoraThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This beautiful, slim volume has won no less than six literary prizes. Murgia paints an early and evocative picture of the young central character''Love, Maria as she makes mud tarts. But this innocent activity is about to come to an abrupt halt. Her birth mother struggles to feed and clothe all her children (Maria is the fourth child and is really a nuisance) so when an opportunity arises which I'solves the problem of Maria' if you liked read, then she grabs it with both hands. Maria is quickly and rather unceremoniously adopted by an older woman who just happens was supposed to be a widow. She has no children of her own light and seems to lead a rather lonelyweightless feeling, insular life. She is old enough to be a grandmother, let alone a mother. Will she be able to cope with a noisy youngster under her roof? You wonder why shebut I had always longed for gravity''d want to take in a raggedy child, or any child for that matter, in the first place. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050451</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jaimy GordonMichael Grothaus|title=Lord of MisruleBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=West Virginia, 1970. We're at a rundown race track, of the dusty kind rundown horses 'But fearing something and their rundown owner/trainers fetch up living in, with the occasional race having it come to interrupt the boredom. Into pass are two different things comes a young upstart hoping to surprise all with his four unknown quantities and make a packet before fleeing. His girlfriend is here too And I'm willing to help outbet most of what we fear will never happen, and naively eager for success and knowledge, but old hands like Medicine Ed have seen or we can take steps to change it all before. Also in the background are some small-time gangsters who are not too keen at for once not knowing who is doing what and how races are going to be run and won.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386697</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles FrazierJennifer Saint|title=NightwoodsAtalanta|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you have read Charles Frazier's 'Cold Mountain'I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, or indeed seen the film, then you'll have a fair idea what to expect from his latest offering - 'Nightwoods'I vowed. As with 'Cold Mountain'I would take my place, not just in the landscape name of the Appalachians is the dominant character, this time set in the 1950sgoddess. He even manages to get his requisite bear into It was for the story although thankfully it fares rather better than the unfortunate beast in his first book. The darksake of my name, oppressing majesty and beauty of the mountains and woods pervades the whole storytoo.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444731246</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A PortsmouthAmanthi Harris|title=The Beautiful Torment of a DreamPlace|rating=35
|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 beautifully presented book with its enigmatic front cover and equally enigmatic titleplace she spent her formative years. After reading It is not a place she was born into, but the blurb on one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the back cover I was left with a feeling of wishy-washiness howeverVilla, how it became her home, as regards and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the storyline''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Unfortunately 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 contents confirmed this for meVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956493602</amazonuk>1784631930
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Wilson178563335X|title=The Family Fang|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Annie Fang and her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be again. But it has come to this - her film actress career is on the rocks with the kind of self-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writers, and he - well, he's here because of a jumbo spud gun. Neither want life back at home, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents - without much planning, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - in a whole career of performance art pieces, designed to enact a point of life or just cause havoc.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSea Defences|author=Philip Roth|title=Nemesis|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=1944, Newark, New Jersey. Summer. Hot. Bucky Cantor, a young Jewish man, is gym teacher and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the district, helping all those interested become fit young men, able to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing - serving in the forces. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at hand, if it were cooler, and if there were no polio epidemic happening. But there is, and nobody knows what is causing it. Is it flies? Is it a gang of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood to neighbourhood? Is it blacks, germs on money - is it in fact Cantor himself, draining all the youthful vigour from his charges under a blistering sun?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542269</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Wolfe|title=A Man in FullHilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=IWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she'll hold my hands up right now s a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and say that no, I havenwondering why they't read Wolfe's much-acclaimed [[The Bonfire of re held when you need to pick the Vanities by Tom Wolfe|The Bonfire of the Vanities]]children up. I've heard a lot about itHer husband, Christopher, over the yearscollects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, in newspapers etc that I almost feel that I ''have'' read itJamie, mind youwhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. So IThelma'm really pleased to have the chance to read this muchs daughter-in-awaited novellaw won't let her see her grandson. At Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a stonking 700+ pages most of which are packed tight lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with Wolfethe parish - and she's particular style in awe of prosethe vicar, ItGail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a veritable feast for readerswalk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554771</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J M Coetzee1398515388|title=Scenes From Provincial LifeThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary='Scenes from Provincial Life' is a compilation First of JM Coetzee's three fictionalised memoirs: 'Boyhood' first published all, it was the earthquake, deep in 1997the ocean floor, 'Youth' published in 2002 which created the tsunami and [[Summertime by J M Coetzee|Summertime]] published this, in 2009turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. In one sense they clearly belong together in this single edition The result was complete and yet they utter devastation. The deaths were initially published separatelyuncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. What strikes The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the reader list of this compilation is priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the change in style convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and focus of Tamon the third book dog jumped in the series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554853</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henning Mankell0989715337|title=DanielPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A young Hans Bengler has decided to leave his homeland of Sweden and make an expedition across the inhospitable Kalahari Desert. Brave - or extremely foolish. I'm sticking with 'Some frogs had gotten into the latter. My reasons are that Bengler is portrayed by Mankell as a rather dull, insular and unimaginative young man. He doesn't really get along with his family (such as they are) nor does he seem to have many friendswell. It's also plain that he's desperate to leave his cold Sweden for warmer climes. But at what cost?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009948143X</amazonuk>}}
}}