International fiction
Berta Isla by Javier Marías
Impermanence and identity are at the heart of Javier Marías’ latest work, a literary spy tale in which Oxford undergraduate Tomás is recruited into the British secret service after event in the town leave him no choice. Back in Madrid…
At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong
At Dusk is a small but powerful novel from one of South Korea’s most esteemed novelists. Hwang Sok-yong, born in 1943, has witnessed enormous political and historical change in his homeland and was a political prisoner for five years. He…
Transcription by Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson has a gift for blending fiction with historical detail. Life After Life (2013) and its companion, A God in Ruins (2015), are brilliant evocations of England, set predominantly during World War II and its aftermath, that use their…
Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
Smoothly, calmly, Haruki Murakami leads us out to the latest outpost of his fictional universe. We survey the hillside and the lonely house in which the narrator has come to live. Once, it belonged to the father of a friend…
Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin
Pretend I’m Dead is a stunning debut novel; its cover is filled with recommendations from established authors, and it tops my best reads for 2018. Jen Beagin has created a wonderful character in Mona, a self-described ‘cleaning lady’ who adores…
The Piranhas by Roberto Saviano
Roberto Saviano is probably best known for his internationally best-selling book Gomorrah. Both the book and the subsequent movie catapulted the author and the Italian mafia into the literary limelight and also guaranteed him a life of hiding and…
French Exit by Patrick deWitt
‘French Exit’: hastily leaving a social gathering without saying goodbye (see also, Irish Goodbye, taking English Leave, ghosting). Frances, her adult son Malcolm and their cat, Small Frank, are out of money. They’re also sick of the social obligations of…
Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale
In an attempt to rebound from his previous relationship, Eustace meets the calm and confident Theo on a dating app. Twenty years his junior, Theo is stationed on a military base, and their romance is confined to Skype calls. As…
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller
English author Andrew Miller has been winning awards for his writing ever since his first book, Ingenious Pain, was published in 1997 and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Grinzane…
Orchid & the Wasp by Caoilinn Hughes
Orchid & the Wasp opens outrageously and does not miss a beat from there: ‘It is our right to be virgins as often as we like, Gael told the girls … Gael was eleven. It was her last term in…
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