International fiction

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

Reviewed by Bronte Coates

If you’re already reading Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, you know why this author is considered a literary sensation by readers worldwide. Her books are shattering and enthralling, intimate and vicious. If you haven’t read the first three books in this…

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A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler

Reviewed by Alison Huber

This small book makes a huge impact. It has been a bestseller in its original German language publication (selling some 150,000 copies) and readers can now join in this thoroughly deserved enthusiasm in English translation.

Andreas Egger is born in…

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Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal

Reviewed by Chris Gordon

If you reckon all of us, here in the Great Indulgent Western World, are turning into complete tossers about food then this debut novel is for you. Already receiving huge enthusiasm in the United States, Kitchens of Great Midwest is…

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You Don’t Have to Live Like This by Benjamin Markovits

Reviewed by Alan Vaarwerk

On a trip back to the US from his dead-end academic posting in Wales, Greg ‘Marny’ Marnier is wooed by an old college friend, tech entrepreneur Robert James, to be part of a large-scale experiment: James, having bought-up thousands of…

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The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler

Reviewed by Natalie Platten

Books hold significance for Simon Watson, the protagonist in Erika Swyler’s The Book of Speculation. As a young archivist dedicated to securing funding for a rare collection at the library where he works, he understands the value and import…

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The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Reviewed by Dani Solomon

If Firefly and Red Dwarf had a baby and it was raised by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the cast of Girls, and the baby was a novel, it would be The Long Way to a Small

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The Long Utopia by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Reviewed by Dani Solomon

When I was a kid visiting Adventure Playgrounds, I always entered thinking, ‘This place is built for me and in it I can be anything, and anything can happen.’ Reading Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s The Long Earth series brings…

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China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan

Reviewed by Alexandra Mathew

‘Her entire existence revolved around the acquisition and preservation of fortune,’ writes Kevin Kwan in his latest novel China Rich Girlfriend. Such a statement sums up most characters in this book, which documents the fictional lives of Singaporean family…

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The Festival of Insignificance by Milan Kundera

Reviewed by Lucy Van

Milan Kundera’s last novel, Ignorance, was published in 2000. Over a decade later, it’s no stretch to call The Festival of Insignificance one of the world’s most anticipated novels from one of the greatest living novelists. Many will delight…

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The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

Reviewed by Jason Austin

I’ve neglected adult sci-fi in my adult life as it’s something that I read a lot of it as a teenager, and this novel has reminded me that sci-fi often mirrors what is happening today. It is often fobbed off…

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