Changes

|author= Tahi SaihatePolly Barton|title= Astral SeasonWhat Am I, Beastly SeasonA Deer?|rating= 3.54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We long Polly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. The narrator, newly relocated from London to Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the process of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a new audience. Barton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, in striving for our past even though it universality, language is endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. From this, the novel opens out into a wider, resonant question: to what extent do we translate ourselves in order to be understood, accepted, or loved?|isbn=1804272175}}{{Frontpage|author=Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Disappearing Act|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Despite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the town of F for a literary festival she is to which we can never returnbe a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Tahi SaihateSwept up in this series of events, M eventually offers to step in her debut for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. The train functions as a motif of transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and a retreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn=1804272329}}{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary 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 ''Astral Season, Beastly Seasonon the floor somewhere'' illustrates how these roseand has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either -tinted glasses often liebut we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.}}{{Frontpage|author=Makenna Goodman|title=Helen of Nowhere|rating=4. Her novel 5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a meditation disgraced professor on youth the brink 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. The connection between Helen and how the things we do as protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a teenager can seem intensely important volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and often life-alteringdescribes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn= 19162771011804272205

|author=Laura Imai MessinaThea Lenarduzzi|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldTower

|summary= In ''How unctuous are the northeast fats of Japananother's life, how dizzying their sugars in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box in his garden. our bloodstream''Inside there is an old black. In this compelling novel, telephone, disconnectedThea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, that carries voices into the windprotagonist of this tale.Just as T'' It s story is a real placebeing told, the story of a necessary placesecond protagonist is unveiled: Annie, and I am pleased to see the IMPORTANT NOTE that daughter of a wealthy family in the author attaches to her story19th century, that the place is not who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tourist destinationtower, it captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a sacred placestory which she consumes avariciously, both in a place that must be left to those who really need itquest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=178658039X1804271799

|author=Amin MaaloufJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=The DisorientedVaim|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Big Kiss, Bye-Bye

|summary= Adam has lived Everything in Paris for yearsthis book, speaks French more easily than his native Arabichowever sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. In fact he hasn't been back to his homeland for 25 years. An old friend is dying…or as Adam prefers to think of him Even a former-friendkiss, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-friendusually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, or maybebecomes evidence of love lost. The falling When the narrator cries out was a long time agointernally, ''come over here and Adamkiss me,''s partner has no idea what it was about, even so she urges him is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to go knowing that he'll regret not doing soconfirm her emotional numbness. Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants toThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, or simply because he was askedher ex-partner, he's on the next planea ghost she conjures to test her detachment. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY1804271934

|author=Joanne M HarrisHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=A Pocketful of CrowsLili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre= Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= I have always been First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the mind that once you're above picture-book level page and before you get to graphic sex & violencepositions them elsewhere, there is no difference between books for children and books for adults. There are good books and poor ones. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor onesdisjointed, truncated. ''A Pocketful of Crows'' is clearly aimed at the younger readers as witness Like the use lives of the middle initial in the author's name to differentiate from her adult offers. Ignore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris is mistress of the modern fairy tale. This is no different. It is an utter delightcharacters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=14732221841804271675

|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)Jonathan Buckley|title=A Life Without EndOne Boat

|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have ''One Boat'' is a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbersdeeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, but drawing the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon. And then reader into a few contemplative realm of the big 0-numbers, philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and if all goes wellprotagonist, I'll be an OBETeresa. (Which Set against the evocative backdrop of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the extent magic of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said its setting and its power to be living oneprovoke profound introspection. Determined to find out how to prolong life for Teresa herself recognises these qualities as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to reason she has visited it after the first geneticist he interviewsdeath of both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and they end up with a childdeeply self-aware, which inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is at least a way book that not only requires but inspires depth of continuing the life of his genesthought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and a motive to keep ironically relies on goinganalepsis for its propulsion. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=16428606701804271764

|author= Maryse CondéEowyn Ivey|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating= 43.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live ''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in a posther day- world: postto-colonialismday life, post-modernism, post truth. The list goes and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live onthe North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix postWhen she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn and solitary man, who says he has a cabin over there, she feels called to go - in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condéand bring Emaleen with her. In her new novelWithout realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen''The Wondrous s lives forever.|isbn=1472279042}} {{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and Tragic Life is something of Ivan a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and Ivana''so brilliantly frustrating, Condé writes with fervour about as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the scars left by colonialism on many relationships woven into this story, the countries central one for readers to which it latched itselfunravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupe, a French overseas departmentsocially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. They grow up Following their father's passing after a long battle with intense and passionate feelings for each othercancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials. |isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=As they grow up and move overseasalways in Dostoyevsky, the ravages of character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a post-colonial society drive them apart character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with tragic consequencesremarkable clarity.|isbn=16428606970241619785

|author= Ukamaka OlisakweJames Baldwin|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightGiovanni's Room|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at the trauma and heartache of being a woman in 1980s Nigeria. The title is ''Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightGiovanni's Room''. Ogadinma is follows the eponymous heroine of the story.. We are narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with her Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in every scene and it a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is her narrative voice that leads travelling in Spain, the story, although Olisakwe writes real tension in third person. This provides a sense of detachment for the reader and highlights novel arises not from his infidelity but from the isolation of Ogadinmadeeper conflict within himself. She It is exiled from her fatherDavid's home crippling shame and sent to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escapedenial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|isbn=19116481600141186356

|author=Elliot ReedAlba de Cespedes |title=A Key to Treehouse LivingForbidden Notebook

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This is the story Italian work of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death feminist fiction holds an air of his mother suspense and his father's abandonment. However, it isn't told in tension from the usual narrative way. Insteadmoment our protagonist, the book is made up of glossary entriesValeria Cossati, written by Williampurchases her forbidden notebook, as a way of describing certain events, situations and emotions. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to learns about herself in the style, most intimate and was instead caught up in William's storyrevealing ways.|isbn=19115454181782278222

|author= Karina Sainz Borgo and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)Ottessa Moshfegh|title= It Would Be Night in CaracasMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating= 43|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''It Would Be Night in Caracas'' illuminates the everyday horrors At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern day Venezuela. It begins with society and reveals the death fragility of Adelaida Falcon's mother and chronicles Adelaida's coming to terms with her new solitude in this world and her attempts to escape human relationships; at worst, it. Danger stalks is the shadows cynical, predictable andslightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in a society where her twenties is disillusioned with the establishment is crumblingworld, who can you turn but resolves not to? lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|isbn=00629368671784707422}}

|isbnauthor=1471186393Matthew Tree|title=Photographer of the Lost|author=Caroline ScottWe'll Never Know

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=May 1921. Edie receives Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a photograph through the post. There is no letter or note with it. There is nothing written on the back drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of the photograph. It is a picture his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of her husband, Francisself confidence. Francis has been missing for four years. TechnicallySo Tim applied himself to his studies, he has been "missing, believed killed" cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but that is not something that a young widow can believe. She hangs on the word 'missing', disbelieving the word killedachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland How is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be. [[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Jansson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0954221710.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954221710/ref=nosiman opening?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | The style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Literary Fiction]] Tove Jansson's short novel about Summer is several worlds away from the Moomintrolls she is most famous for outside her native Scandinavia. Book yourself an afternoon of this Summer, and take yourself and The Summer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight and sound of the sea, settle back and prepare to be transported. [[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Sedgwick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788542347.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788542347/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] This is a deep, interesting read unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The novel's story follows a young man named Ash in the process form 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 interconnected short stories goes from the outside world – people are even required to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integrated. [[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick|Full Review]] <!-- Hewitt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1509896465.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1509896465/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''The Nightjar'' is an unusual succinct and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning and her life begins laconic to unravel, fast. From that very moment, her life is flooded with magic, loss, expectation wistful and particularlymusing, betrayal. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must change. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself? [[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt|Full Review]] <!-- Mulligan -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1784742716turning on a sixpence.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784742716/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] I came to this book thinking I knew just what to expect, even though it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|the And 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 upMarco North, the tale of a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in has the most pleasant way. I hadn't opened it when I'd shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness. More fool me. [[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan|Full Review]] <!-- Anstruther -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1784631647.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784631647/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Enid Campbell was a woman who, on the face 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. [[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther|Full Review]] <!-- Laguna -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:191070962X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/191070962X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Choke by Sofie Laguna]]=== [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] There's a dull, dispiriting pang of disappointment that comes when you try something everyone else loves and find out that you're really not into it. Coffee. Ice skating. A new Netflix series. Books are like that, but doubly so. [[The Choke by Sofie Laguna|Full Review]] <!-- Varenne -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0857058738.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857058738/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme park. Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity of white man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can wonderful turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USAphrase, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying starts as he means to find this book's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them go on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Kan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1911115847.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911115847/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Literary Fiction| Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] ''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope. [[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan|Full Review]]