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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary Francois RockcastleMatthew Tree|title=In Caddis WoodWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Middle-aged, married and (comparatively speaking) middle class Americans Hallie and Carl seem, at first glance, Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be happy. Hallie (different from his father, a poet) drunk and Carl (an architect) have chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all the trappings failed miserably and who had endless crises of success including two adult twin daughters and a holiday home in the beautiful Caddis Woodself confidence. However, Carl becomes a little shaky on So Tim applied himself to his feet and, while he's able to shrug it off for a whilestudies, he begins to realise that something's seriously wrong. As cultivated his health deteriorates other cracks materialise as he realises abilities rather than his marriage isn't as steady as he thought and so he daydreams and Hallie must come to terms with her past and, indeed, futureset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1555975925</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Joe Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is a salesman on the verge of giving up. Having lost all confidence in his ability to sell vacuum cleaners to Middle Americaquestion if you did, he creates and elaborates on a fantasy just would it land? The catch is that the answer for funboth could well be. It includes a woman being 'serviced' from behind, her partner obscured by a waist high wall. The only thing any over-the-wall voyeur sees is an innocent activity e.g. she may manicure her nailsno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276118</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jose SaramagoMosby Woods|title=Raised from the GroundA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Domingos The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is a feckless manquite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a man often neglecting his family, and hitting his wife due to too much drinkingpush for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man often leaving everyone behind as he chases work and flees his debtswith precognition. He calls himself Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a shoemaker but really he's little different from those around him, man who actually do have to move about, chasing can tell you what seasonal agricultural work is availablewill happen given any set of circumstances. Certainly his children and their children in turn will mostly That man would be bound to the land they sprang from - the 'latifundio' – and the spirit of both all of them, and of itvaluable, throughout right? Perhaps the Portuguese twentieth centurymost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, are the subjects of that this man loses this early [[:Category:Jose Saramago|Jose Saramago]] novel, in English for the first time after a thirty-year waitability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846557062</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dag Solstad0571379559|title=Professor Andersen's NightThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A Christmastime in Norway''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Spending his Christmas Eve aloneTess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, yet celebrating she lives in the age-old occasion house on the traditional way just by and for himselfriverbank, is Professor Andersenbuilt of broken bricks. While taking Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time , storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to muse on grow his vegetables, to complete the partydelivery rounds -hosting neighbours lit up in their own apartments across the way, he sees a young woman get roughly manhandled by what he thinks is a young man, after which their curtains are closed and suspicion is allowed to mount bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the Professorrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's mindJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. He attends a dinner party – arriving far too earlyPeople don't believe that they're related, to have the opportunity to talk the case over with his best friend – much less twins and goes away, spending many hours there's an assumption when Max is out with his colleague, yet carries on doing nothing about reporting what he is sure was a murder. He and the relationship to the criminal in mother that she's his mind are the basis of this short novelnanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099578425</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adolfo Garcia OrtegaKay Chronister|title=Desolation IslandDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=In MadeiraWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, in the first months post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of the new millenniumwater or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a man named Oliver Griffin collars a total stranger way for humans to explain his lifetime’s obsession with a South American island called Desolationcathartically experience their most existential fears. Griffin ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a narrator as gabby as Melville’s Ishmael but twice as rambling, and what he recounts is less a coherent story than a neverending cabinet of curiosities. This magical realist take on the history new work of a place involves forbidden love, sixteenthpost-century automatons, mysterious Balkan castles, war crimes, death at sea, Jewish folklore, the personal lives apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of French authors and the sexual conduct of famous Spanish explorers, each bizarre strand twisted together by the novel’s own weird internal logic into one astonishing and delightful patternfears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099516934</amazonuk>1803364998
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{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Emma BeckerEric LaRocca|title=MonsieurThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=3.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=She Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a twenty-year old student, with an average cleavage way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a big bum. He ''Big Bad'', whether that is 45a home invader, a married cosmetic surgeonmonster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and a friend , by the end of the familystory, having worked with her uncle for yearsbeatable. They might be an unlikely couple – at least outside the realms of erotic fiction they are – but as she puts it, she wants him to Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There''show me what a man was is not like, that. It is a real mancollection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, a man who could fill my body '''grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger andare harder to defeat than any ''' my mindBig Bad''. The consequences are in this novel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780334761</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas KeneallyMadelaine Lucas|title=The Daughters of MarsThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Expectations ahead of Thomas Keneally's 'The Daughters of MarsLove, I' are understandably high. He regularly features on the Booker shortlist d read, was supposed to be a light and has won the prize in the past with ''Shindler's Arkweightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. While his subject matter, World War IOverlaid with later wisdom, is hardly the most original, his slant on narrator relives the story is, and this is affair with a book that deserves man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to sit with its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the very best backdrop of the many books on that subject, including 'an isolated Australian coastal town 'All Quiet on the Western Front'Thirst for Salt' and ''Birdsong''. Itdetails the 24-year-old narrator's that good deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and that powerfulhow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340951877</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Michael Grothaus
|title=Beautiful Shining People
|rating=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.''
''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph O'ConnorJennifer Saint|title=Where Have You Been?Atalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Irish novelist Joseph O'Connor has had quite a 2012'I was as worthy as any one of them. Earlier I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the year he joined the ranks of such authors as Edna O'Brien, [[:Category:Roddy Doyle|Roddy Doyle]] and Seamus Heaney when he became a recipient name of the PEN award for his outstanding contribution to Irish literaturegoddess. What could possibly top that It was for a sense the sake of achievement? Well thismy name, his first book of short stories in 20 years, must come pretty close to at least equalling it, amply illustrating the reasons for the paneltoo. Atalanta''s decision.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846556899</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helene Gremillon and Alison Anderson (translator)Amanthi Harris|title=The ConfidantBeautiful Place|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It's 1975 and CamillePadma, having lost her father a while agoyoung Sri Lankan, is now coming has returned to terms with the recent death Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her motherhome country. After plucking up courage and strengthThis is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, she goes through but the condolence cards but there's one item in the correspondence pile that's out she thinks of placeas home. It's addressed How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her but from Louis (whom home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she doesnfirst arrived there provide the ''score't know) about Annie (of whom she's never heard)for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. As Louis pours out his story, reminiscing about his youth in wartime France, Camille is convinced it Padma's a mistake; she shouldn't have received it. However the envelope is definitely addressed present fails to escape her past and, what's more, this won't be much like the last instalment musical score of Louis' sad memoir a film, that comes strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the postVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908313293</amazonuk>1784631930
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Hay178563335X|title=Alone In The ClassroomSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she'Other children were out picking that mornings a trainee vicar, but she passed them by sitting in her light-blue dress on a PCC meeting and sandalswondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up... she had an empty kettle in each hand Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and was aloneher elder brother, Jamie, despite having three sisterswhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma' Coming back 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 Haydevelop a real bond with the parish - and she's writing is like a kind in awe of homecomingthe vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. She has such a soft way of words: a gentleness Rachel and Christopher hoped that gathers you up like a storywalk on the beach would do them some good -time school teacher asking if you're sitting comfortablyit was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051253</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Terrin1398515388|title=The GuardBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Harry First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and Michel are very good at their jobthis, in turn, even if we might think their job is not that greatcaused the nuclear meltdown. They The result was complete and they alone are responsible for protecting the building they live inutter devastation. Designed as an impregnable fortress containing many immenseThe deaths were uncountable, palatial apartments inhabited by the ultra-rich, the only way in is through and the basement carpark, where they reside in their own small patch loss of territorylivelihoods was widespread. They are certainly diligent – inspecting their stash of munitions twice a day, even if nothing could possibly interfere with The fact that many pets were separated from their supply of bullets, and navigating around owners came far down the large expanse of space where each list of priorities but - six months after the forty floors above them has space for three supercarstsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. But while one seems to be dreaming of things he might not get to witness – promotion to guarding villas in Elysian fields with becoming He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's wives, the other seems to be hearing things comment that might not actually be there he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to be heard…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050877</amazonuk>open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Ford0989715337|title=CanadaPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Richard Ford's ''Canada'Some frogs had gotten into the well.' opens with one of the best opening lines that I've read in a long time:
'First, I'll tell about Walter stood waist-deep in the robbery our parents committedfragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Then about Two of the murdersdogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them.'' How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, which happened laterturning on a sixpence. The robbery is And author Marco North, who has the most important part'wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747598606</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Daisy Hildyard
|title=Emergency
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=
The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is done with the premise.
|isbn=1913097811
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Kevin PowersSally Oliver |title=The Yellow BirdsWeight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.|isbn= 086154112X }} {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Daniel Murphy (Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'Murpha delight') is 18, in perhaps using the American army and about to embark on his first tour of duty expression in Iraqa way I'm not familiar with. By his side is John Bartle, three years older and more experienced in I have to confess my ignorance of the armySpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. However neither of them has any notion of From the sort of life or job they will face when they get there. The fighting is dirty, unpredictable and not set out little I have read (in any text book. Their commanding officertranslation, Sergeant Sterling, is sadistic and without any apparent humanity. But everything will I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be alright: Bartle has made a promise to Murph's mother, a promise that will ricochet from tendency towards the fantastical – the US to Iraq and back againmystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444756125</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Novels about narcotic substances are notoriously hard to pull off. The challenge is to make 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the induced events interesting and meaningful to story of three women who live in the, presumably, non-induced readerheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. In ''Narcopolis''Cassandra, Jeet Thayil pulls this off surprisingly well for meClytemnestra, although it's fair to say that it won't be everyone's tasteand Elektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. It's not a book Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the Bombay/Mumbai tourist office will be keen to promote. A cover quotation links silent women have the book to a similar vein (OK, that's a poor choice of words in the circumstances) to ''Trainspotting'' most compelling stories and that's not far from the markmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571275761</amazonuk>1472273915
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Zadie Smith8409290103|title=NWIf Only|author=Matthew Tree
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Fans of Zadie Smith have Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had a seven year wait since her last book ''On Beauty''. In ''NW''been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, Smith returns to more of the issues addressed in her brilliant debut novel [[White Teeth by Zadie Smith|White Teeth]]. Set in parts of London ensure that should be obvious from the title, young man got on board the book takes boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. Patrick sent the lives money regularly and a correspondence - of four people who grew sorts - sprang up on a rough estate and looks at how they have moved on - or not. All four still live nearby between the estate where they grew uptwo although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. There It wasn't that Lowry senior didn's multi-cultural tension and the t care for his son, it was that he didn't care to have and have nots of power and money and Smith looks at how much individuals are him in control of their destiny and ability this country where he might be a danger to rise out of their upbringing, his wife and how chance encounters can bring you back other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to your past with a bumpget the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144140</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fuminori NakamuraAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=The ThiefRed is My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction |summary=The Thief [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is content roaming the streets of Tokyo, living black and white and red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on the contents of its wealthier citizens' pockets untilthis piece, his original partner in crime (literally) introduces him to Kizaki, a local shady big shot. Kizaki wants the Thiefand I think it's help on a straightforward job. He will just be possible to say not one of a team tasked with breaking into a rich speculator's home, scaring him a little, taking page lacks the contents influence of his safe and departing. No rough stuff and the financial settlement Kizaki offers will more than compensate the pickpocket for his timesome striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780339135</amazonuk>1913547183
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A N WilsonB098FFFBH9|title=The Potter's Hand|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The man of clay that A N Wilson throws onto his storytelling wheel in ''The Potter's Hand'' is the great Josiah Wedgwood, but this is much more than a historic telling of his life. Indeed, Josiah already has a thriving business at the start of the book. What Wilson does particularly impressively is to put Wedgwood's achievement and works into the context of the politics and social philosophy of the times, sandwiched between the two great revolutions in America and France. In order to do this, Wilson has to play slightly loose with artistic licence by altering dates and time lines a bit, but it works well. He also balances the real historic figures with several key figures of his own invention and where the historic figures don't quite fit with his narrative, he alters their ages and invents 'facts' to the benefit of the fictional narrative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879512</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSnowcub|author=Jake Arnott|title=The House of RumourGraham Fulbright|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jake Arnott sees to be one of those authors Fourteen-year- like [[:Category:Will Self|Will Self]] whom youold Rachel is her school'll love or loathe. Occasionally, you'll swing from one extreme s animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the other and I'll confess to being a little nervous when I opened way in which human beings exploit the bookanimal world. We really weren't ''that'' keen when we read [[The Devil's Paintbrush by Jake Arnott|The Devil's Paintbrush]]. Using the deck She gets a great deal of Tarot cards as the structure of the book we look support from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at the twentieth century through the life of Larry ZagorskiImperial College, London, mother Kate and her twin, Nick. Imagine history being gently folded together like Kate runs the family business, a cake mixture with episodes sliding against each othertoy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, flavouring that which they touch. Imagine the real - Aleister Crowley (reprising his appearance in is where we''The Devilll meet Rachel's Paintbrush''main (if unsuspected), Rudolf Hess, Ian Fleming, Cyril Connolly, Jim Jones and L Ron Hubbard blended with a transexual prostitute, a British pop singer and Larry, who writes pulp science fictionsource of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340922729</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison MooreYancey Williams|title=The LighthouseCrosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Futh he's on a North Sea ferry Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his way strenuous objections and thanks to a walking holiday in Germany. Therehis daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's no sense point of enthusiasm or anticipation: Futh's middle aged and recently separatedview - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, seemingly without friends or family. He always wanted with only a dogtrusty nursing aide, but keeps stick insectsJenkins, for palatable company. The holiday seems Nothing is going to be something whichkeep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, when it is overso here, he will have done it and will then return to for his new flat. It begins and will end at Hellhausreaders, a guesthouse run by Bernard and are his wanderings through his wife Ester. He gets on well enough with Ester but is at a loss to understand a rather hostile encounter with Bernard. He sets out the following morning for a week of walking, thinking and remembering. Meanwhile Ester - untouched by her meeting with Futh - continues her lonely life punctuated by the occasional casual sexual encounter which she barely hides from Bernard's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907773177</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicola Barker0008421714|title=The YipsMrs March|author=Virginia Feito
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Stuart Ransom is a golfing has-been and heThe problem began just after the publication of George March's the only one who doesn't realise itmost successful novel to date. If his recollections are anything to go by Everyone but Mrs March (and who can tell?) he was we know her first name only on a par with the bestlast page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Times have changed though; Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the handicap bread, ''but isn't what it once was and age and alcohol have taken their toll. this the first time he's based a character on you?'' HoweverShe mentioned that Johanna, hope springs eternal and therethe principal character had 'her mannerisms''s always one more match, so perhaps this is it. Meanwhile GenePerhaps this would not have mattered, who splits his time between working at except for the hotel in which Stuart fact that Johanna is staying and reading electricity metersthe whore of Nantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, encounters an agoraphobicpathetic, exotic tattooist. Valentine is a woman struggling with an unhealthily precocious 2 year-oldunloved, a brother flirting with criminality and a brain-injured mother who has become more than a little eccentricunloveable wretch. Add Gene's wife Rev Sheila and her personal crisis into the mix and it becomes a recipe for disaster, it's just a case of waiting for it to erupt.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007476655</amazonuk>
}}
