International fiction
The Mirror Thief by Martin Seay
When I was at the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute in January this year, it seemed like pretty much everyone was talking about The Mirror Thief. First, I heard the impassioned pitch from the publisher likening Seay’s writing to…
Barkskins by Annie Proulx
Since the publication of Annie Proulx’s last book, almost a decade ago, details have filtered through that she was working on an epic about the wood trade in the late 1600s. The appearance of an excerpt of it in the…
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
Eligible is the fourth book to be released as part of the Jane Austen Project; a series that sees contemporary authors adapt Austen’s stories to modern-day settings. This time around, Curtis Sittenfeld takes Pride and Prejudice, moves it to…
Girls on Fire by Robin Wasserman
From its very first pages, I knew Robin Wasserman’s novel Girls on Fire was going to be a book for me. I say this because it’s not going to be a book for everyone. Girls on Fire is intense, shocking…
The Cauliflower® by Nicola Barker
Nicola Barker’s new novel is a perplexing assemblage of narrative fragments, poetry, scripture, and historical documents, ‘collaged’, to use her own definition, to produce an exploration of faith and myth-making. The Cauliflower® tells a reconstructed, irreverent and comedic history of…
Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
Set in England, France and Malta during World War II, Chris Cleave’s Everyone Brave is Forgiven introduces four likeable, amusing characters and puts them through hell.
Mary is a socialite turned teacher and ambulance driver with an irrepressible quest for…
The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver
Lionel Shriver’s latest novel articulates a plausible but depressing near-future that plays on the fears of the middle class and upwardly mobile. The Mandibles: 2029–2047 traces the lives of three generations who lose everything and become economic refugees in a…
LaRose by Louise Erdrich
I earmarked Louise Erdrich’s brilliant LaRose as ‘must reread’ about fifty pages in; I’ve since granted it ‘give-this-copy-to-a-friend-and-buy-yourself-another-copy’ status. I want to get it into the hands of as many people as I possibly can.
Louise Erdrich was awarded the…
Zero K by Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo has enthralled readers over the years with his distinctive brand of hyper-realism. His characters speak in DeLillo-speak, challenging ideas in a unique tone that is at once ponderously earnest and hilariously mocking. There is a fixation with death…
The Bricks That Built the Houses by Kate Tempest
Prepare to be lit up and properly electrified, to feel love, desire, dread and longing in equal parts – in great swathes or in tiny jolts or in head-ripping explosions. Kate Tempest is hands-down the biggest spoken word act going…
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