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Newest Literary Fiction Reviews (view source)

Revision as of 16:54, 10 December 2020

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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy Holland
|title=Sistersong
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Sistersong is part of a genre I particularly enjoy, the modern retelling of folk and fairy tales. These stories, for most of us, are a cornerstone of childhood and I relish seeing them retold with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective. If handled well these retellings give new life and new meaning to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow and outdated, fleshing out characters, examining relationships and re-evaluating the role of women. Sistersong is a perfect example of a modern retelling done well, the plot is handled with care, keeping its archaic historical feel but allowing the characters to come to life, to feel real and human, most importantly they feel relatable in a modern world whilst still feeling appropriate for the pre-Saxon age they live in. This is a masterpiece of storytelling and I was captivated from beginning to end.
|isbn=1529039037
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B002SQCYWQ
|title=The Complete Barchester Chronicles
|author=Anthony Trollope
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When I told my daughter that I didn't know what to listen to now that I'd finished [[The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen|The Complete Novels of Jane Austen]] for the second time on the trot she had the perfect answer: The Barchester Chronicles and they were in my inbox in a matter of minutes. They're not ''quite'' as well known as the Austen books but they're an excellent follow on.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B077K6BQFD
|title=The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
|author=Jane Austen
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Yes - that's over eighty-one hours of listening for the purchase of one audio book. All six major novels are read by conmedienne Alison Larkin and they're presented in the order in which they were published.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)
|title=If You Kept a Record of Sins
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and before we even know his gender or the nature of the person he's addressing in his second person monologue of a narration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother is buried the following day. The mother was a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, to the lad's childhood, and see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell address.
|isbn=1939810965
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
|title=Kokoschka's Doll
|rating=2.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?
|isbn=1529402697
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0571362672
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=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 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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0954221710
|title=The Summer Book
|author=Tove Jansson
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1788542347
|title=Snowflake, AZ
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1784742716
|title=Train Man
|author=Andrew Mulligan
|rating=2.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1784631647
|title=A Perfect Explanation
|author=Eleanor Anstruther
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Enid Campbell was a woman who, on the face 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 and those close 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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=191070962X
|title=The Choke
|author=Sofie Laguna
|rating=2
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=There's a dull, dispiriting pang of disappointment that comes when you try something everyone else loves and find out that you're really not into it. Coffee. Ice skating. A new Netflix series. Books are like that, but doubly so.
}}
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