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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert WalserMatthew Tree|title=The Walk and other storiesWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The publication of this collection of around forty short stories affords the English speaking public Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a unique opportunity; that drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of reading Walser, possibly the leading modernist writer being exceptional at any of Swiss German in the last century. He has received high praise in 'A Place in the Country', W G Sebald's recently published posthumous collection his artistic passions all failed miserably and he is well-known as being a significant influence on Franz Kafkawho had endless crises of self confidence. His work here dates from 1907 So Tim applied himself to 1929 and along with his poetry won him recognition with Berlin's avant garde. He combines lyrical delicacy with detailed observation; reflective melancholy with criticism of brash commercialism. The fine writing in this volume strives to achieve a hard won integrity together with an experimental capacity for reflection. It challenges the reader studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and provokes him to new insightsset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846689589</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=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.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony CartwrightMosby Woods|title=How I Killed Margaret ThatcherA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=3.54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=What motivates someone The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to become a killer? When mend this or even if mending it is the reader first meets Sean Bullbest course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, he a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is nine years oldin actual charge. Imagine then, living there was a seemingly carefree and happy existence surrounded by his family and friends man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a close-knit community in Dudley, West Midlandsman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. He loves Star Wars and playing football with his school friends and adores his teenage uncle JohnnyThat man would be valuable, who tells him stories and creates right? Perhaps the most wonderful pieces of artvaluable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781251576</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenni Fagan0571379559|title=The PanopticonHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Imagine reading a book set ''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 a Scottish children’s care homethe house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. It’s about a violent Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and a deeply disturbed fifteen year old drug addict whofloods. Her husband, Richard, when she was elevenstruggles to grow his vegetables, found her prostitute foster mother murdered to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the bathtubrainbow twins. That’s the set-up of Jenni Fagan’s Sonny's colouring reflects his mother'The Panopticons Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and that’s what it’s about – but the funny thing there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that whatever you’re picturing in your head right now, and what I was imagining before I sat down to read it, bears absolutely no resemblance to the book Fagan has actually writtenshe's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099558645</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jess RichardsKay Chronister|title=Cooking with BonesDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary= Sisters Amber and Maya run away from homeWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, the city a world devoid of Paradonwater or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{frontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Eric LaRocca|title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary= Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and arrive in process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a small village. Finding an old cottagehome invader, the girls settle in comfortablya monster or a ghost, hidden from the locals' sight while joining in with their customs as Amber backs honey cakes each night from the ingredients left daily outside the cottage it usually something tangible and , by the instructions end of the former occupantstory, beatable. Eric LaRocca's cookery books. Now they've moved away from their old life Amber tries to encourage Maya to stand on her own two feet which isn't easyThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. For Maya It is a formwanderercollection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, engineered grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to reflect otherdefeat than any ''Big Bad's wants; a role in which it's difficult to exist normally, let alone while trying to adjust to change… and, indeed, unexpected death.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444738038</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate AtkinsonMadelaine Lucas|title=Life After LifeThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Spanning the period from just before World War One to the end of World War Two, Kate Atkinson's ''Life After Life'' tells the story of Ursula Todd. Or more accuratelyLove, it tells the potential stories of Ursula Todd. If youI've seen the movie ''Sliding Doors'' then you will have some idea of the concept Atkinson explores; that of small changes in life leading to different outcomesd read, many of which lead to tragic endings but strangely the book manages was supposed to be a celebration of the spirit of Ursula light and is often quite uplifting. Itweightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity's a book that sounds like it is going to be much more confusing than it is though and the result is a very special book indeed. It's that rare thing of a book that has a strong literary style but which is also very readable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385618670</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Therese Anne FowlerJennifer Saint|title=Z: A Novel of Zelda FitzgeraldAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=As Therese Anne Fowler points out in her acknowledgements, views on the relationship between F Scott Fitzgerald and his wife and muse, Zelda, tend to split into 'Team Scott' and 'Team Zelda'. The former believe that it I was Zelda's instability and possessiveness that limited Scott's creative output while the latter argue that it was Scott's debauched behaviour that led to Zelda's mental problemsas worthy as any one of them. ''Z'' takes a more balanced view - the truth of the matter is I would get on board that they needed each other but were tragicallyship, mutually destructiveI vowed. Getting the fact-based fiction tone right is always a challengeI would take my place, and this is exacerbated when not just in the author gives a writer name of the narrative voice, and Zelda goddess. It was a talented writer in her own right as well as a dancerfor the sake of my name, artist and general social phenomenontoo. However Fowler pulls it off with aplomb in what is a sensitive and engrossing story of Zelda - Atalanta'the First Flapper'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444761404</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nikolai Leskov, Richard Pevear (translator) and Larissa Volokhonsky (translator)Amanthi Harris|title=The Enchanted Wanderer and Other StoriesBeautiful Place|rating=45
|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 collection place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of 17 Nikolai Leskov stories as mixed in subject matter as they are in lengthhome. From How she came to be at the very short ''Spirit of Madame de Genlis''Villa, how it became her home, warning of and the dire consequences of selecting literature for a mollycoddled princess, to machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the novella-length ''The Enchanted Wandererscore'' telling the tale of the apparently immortal monk who prayed for suicide victims, Leskov (aided greatly by the talented translators Richard Pevear this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and Larissa Volokhonsky) unlocks much like the mores, traditions, religion and superstitions musical score of 19th century Russia for a modern readershipfilm, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099577356</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Taiye Selasi178563335X|title=Ghana Must Go|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Kweku Sai, father, husband and doctor, awakes early one morning and wanders outside into his Ghanaian garden. As he gazes back at his house, he suffers a fatal heart attack and, during his last moments reflects on his life and a family fragmented. On hearing of his death, his children and first wife Folasade look back on what they were before and, thanks in part to Folasade's and Kweku's actions, what they've become.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919861</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSea Defences|author=Michele Roberts|title=IgnoranceHilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Michèle RobertsWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's ''Ignorance'' is a beautifully writtentrainee vicar, lyrical story about life sitting in wartime Franceon a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Narrated mainly by two characters Her husband, Christopher, Jeanne and Mariecollects six-year-Angèle, it jumps back old Hannah and forward in time and is an enthralling mixture of guilther elder brother, faithJamie, and survival. The two girls could not be more differentwhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Marie-Angèle is the grocer Thelma's daughter while Jeanne -in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is the daughter of a Jewish mother who washes clothes for lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a living. The two girls together go to real bond with the village convent for their education but come from different ends parish - and she's in awe of the social spectrum. When the German occupation arrivesvicar, Gail, the two girls' experiences are very different but both are then she'ignorant' of each others plight and their judgements are repeatedly shown to be wide of s been doing the markjob for more than thirty years. In fact Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the book could just as well have been titled 'Judgement'beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. Just when you think you know one through the eyes of the other, you get the opposite view of things And then Hannah went missing. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408831155</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carrie Tiffany1398515388|title=Mateship with BirdsThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edie Middlestein almost has First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the American dream within her graspocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. She trained as a lawyerThe result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, has and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a husband, dog outside a daughter who followed her professional footsteps and a son married to an ambitious wife who provided him with two high-achieving childrenconvenience store. There are just two flies in He wasn't a dog person but the ointment preventing the dreamconvenience store owner's arrival: 1. Edie is so morbidly obese comment that she has he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to undergo surgery; open his car door and 2. this is Tamon the moment her husband chooses to leave herdog jumped in. Apart from that…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689325</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Mikhail Shishkin and Andrew Bromfield (translator)0989715337|title=The Light and Papa on the DarkMoon|author=Marco North|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Two lovers write letters to each other about their love, their dreams and their separate lives; lives that they hope will one day merge once again to become one. For Sasha life is the everyday grind with work and demanding loved ones along with ''Some frogs had gotten into the challenges they engenderwell. For Volodenka, it's life in the Russian army and his eventual posting to China. However their love is more complicated than most as more than geography and circumstance stands between them: they're also separated by the decades… many, many decades.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780871058</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrea EamesDaisy Hildyard|title=The White ShadowEmergency|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=
{{newreviewFrontpage |author=I J KaySally Oliver |title=Mountains The Weight 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 Moonbones 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=The story starts harshlyEarly 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 'a release from prison, delight' is perhaps using the expression in a bail hostel, a refuge for people way I'm not familiar with mental health problems as a better-than-nothing-lied-. I have toconfess my ignorance of the Spanish-be-obtained kind of a sanctuary and a slow easing back into societylanguage literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. If you can call a housing association flat From the little I have read (in translation, with I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a decorating voucher and no furniture, only occasional power and annoying neighbours ''society''tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554739</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Evangeline Muse gives birth to Zachary alone 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in her special lagoon… but that's starting at the endheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. In the beginningCassandra, Clytemnestra, Thomas Greene is a tutor and Will Archer a talented wood carver who both accept employment from Michael MuseElektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. What they don't realise at Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that moment is, once they meet his beautiful daughter, Evangeline, nothing will ever be often the silent women have the most compelling stories and the same again for any of themmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9380905440</amazonuk>1472273915
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Cowan8409290103|title=Worthless MenIf Only|author=Matthew Tree
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you read Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a lot monthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence - of fiction sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about World War One, it's tempting what Lowry has to imagine pre-war England as an idyl of peace and innocencesay than Patrick. Andrew Cowan's ''Worthless Men It wasn't that Lowry senior didn' depicts a much more gritty and earthy England. Set in 1916 in an industrial and market townt care for his son, it weaves together several narratives was that combine he didn't care to depict have him in this country where he might be a hard life danger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before the outbreak of war. In fact, its easier Patrick managed to imagine get the lure of adventure that the war initially offered as a change from the harsh realities of life at home, although by the time Cowan's novel begins, the grim reality of what is involved has dampened much of this enthusiasmyoung man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144475940X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Meike ZiervogelAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=MagdaRed is My Heart|rating=43.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Meet a woman who, despite praying to remain virginal, had seven children. Meet a woman whose mother thought her ''hoity-toity'', [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and spoilt, white and who thought she should go to work read in a factory at school age to know her place bettermy house. Meet a woman of whom her oldest daughter would write 'And so was this one, although I don't care what Mother says. Mother isn't always right. Nocould have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, she definitely isn'tblack and white and red.' All three women areYes, of coursehe has an artistic collaborator on this piece, one and the same, and theyI think it're Magda Goebbels, s possible to say not one page lacks the woman who epitomised more than anyone the Nazi wifeinfluence of some striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907773401</amazonuk>1913547183
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shani BoianjiuB098FFFBH9|title=The People of Forever are not Afraid|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Yael, Lea and Avishag go through their final years at high school in a little Israeli town on the Lebanese border and then on to the inevitable: the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Gender is immaterial, all Israeli citizens must serve at least two years and for these girls the moment arrives after graduation. Yael's posting seems futile as she guards a training base against marauding lads, sneaking across the border to pinch perfume from pockets rather than pose any real security threat. Lea's assignment on a border checkpoint searching the daily line of immigrant workers is riddled with routine. Avishag joins up with her own demons, her brother Dan having died after his national service. She knows how it happened but continues to struggle with why; something she must handle alone. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781090092</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSnowcub|author=Barbara Pym|title=A Glass of BlessingsGraham Fulbright
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Wilmet Forsyth Fourteen-year-old Rachel is a married woman, childless her school's animal rights project leader and living a life of leisure. She she and her friend Rowena met their husbands - both Majors - are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in Italy, where they served as Wrens during which human beings exploit the waranimal world. Rowena now has three children and She gets a great deal of support from her husband David might just be developing family: father Pip Harrison, a wandering eye. Wilmet's husbandlecturer at Imperial College, RodneyLondon, is still ''Noddy'' to his mother with whom they liveKate and her twin, Nick. Unburdened by children or domestic responsibility Wilmet lunches or shops and becomes involved Kate runs the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in the social life of the local churchPutney, St Luke's. But itwhich is where we's her relationship with Piers, Rowenall meet Rachel's somewhat wayward brother, which might pose the biggest threat to her comfortable, main (if rather boring existenceunsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844085805</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Toni JordanYancey Williams|title=Nine Days|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Christopher 'Kip' Westaway lives in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia with mother Jean, sister Connie and his twin, Francis. Kip's mother considers him a layabout who doesn't deserve the special privileges of his educationally elite brother and so he works at the big house next door for the Hustings, caring for their horses. One day Mr Husting presents Kip with a shilling; their little secret. As its 1939, that's a fair amount Crosshairs of money so Kip hides it away, not realising how special that coin will become as the decades pass.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444763555</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Butler|title=Ten Things I've Learnt About Love|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Alice returns home to spend time with her dying father. She's been travelling in Mongolia, finding temporary escape from the issues that had haunted her life in London but now, on her return, events bring the pain she thought was behind her into sharp focus. Meanwhile Daniel is an elderly vagrant who calls the streets of London home. He seeks his lost child, leaving a trail of random items across the city in the hope of reunion like someone occupying a verse of ''Eleanor Rigby''. Disparate lives, seeking love and acceptance in a world that seems to exclude it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447222490</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Yan Lianke|title=Lenin's KissesDevil
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Yan Lianke's 2004 novelAward-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, ''Lenin's Kisses'', newly despite his strenuous objections and beautifully translated by Carlos Rojasthanks to his daughter, is a rare and fascinating examplefinds himself living - or imprisoned, not just from Eddie's point of Chinese fiction from a writer living and working view - in Chinaroom 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, but also with only a book that has won literary awards (the prestigious Chinese ''Lao She Literary Award'')trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, now available in Englishfor palatable company. In many respects, the fact that this book won such a literary prize Nothing is somewhat surprising going to keep Eddie from his stock- not I hasten to add because in-trade of any lack of quality - but because Liankewriting though, so here, who has previously sailed too close to the political wind for Chinese censorshis readers, here presents a not altogether flattering view of Chinese politics. Itare his wanderings through his life's a book that is literary with a capital L, and while the core of the plot is relatively simple, what makes this book so interesting is the structure and way the story is toldwork.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701188073</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jan-Philipp Sendker0008421714|title=The Art of Hearing HeartbeatsMrs March|author=Virginia Feito
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Sendker is German-born The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (Hamburg 1960we know her first name only on the last page) and worked seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as American correspondent for she was wrapping the bread, ''Sternbut isn't this the first time he' (1990 to 95) and then as its Asian correspondent from s based a character on you?'95 to '99. He now lives in Berlin. This probably gives him enough global insight to write about a US-born high flyer with an Asian heritage heading off to Burma to find out She mentioned that Johanna, the truth of principal character had 'her fathermannerisms''s disappearance. It probably also gives him Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the language skills to do it in English without recourse to whore of Nantes - ''a translatorweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697240X</amazonuk>''
}}