“The Buddha of Suburbia” by Hanif Kureishi
I grew up in Beckenham, the exact part of London suburbia in which this novel is set. To my knowledge it’s the only time a novel has ever been set in Beckenham – in fact, it’s probably the only time…
“Lux the Poet” by Martin Millar
I thought I would like this book more than I did. It’s a comedy set in the Brixton Riots of the early 1980s, set around the adventures of a narcissistic poet called Lux. In a wonderfully creative mix of storylines,…
My non-review of the best books of 2010
So all the newspapers have been publishing their end-of-year roundups. Some even started back in November. Here’s why I won’t be doing my own little roundup of the best books of 2010. Basically, it’s because I haven’t read very many…
“Best European Fiction 2010” edited by Aleksandar Hemon
This was a very interesting collection of short stories from around Europe. There’s one piece from each country, so it really felt like a broad and varied collection rather than being weighted toward particular countries. One thing I didn’t like…
“Crow” by Ted Hughes
I rarely read poetry, but I enjoyed this strange little book by Ted Hughes. It’s full of dark imagery, violence and unexpected humour. The poems read like myths of the origins of the world, except that at the middle of…
“Ruminations from the Garden” by Don Henry Ford, Jr.
Almost all writers carry a notebook around with them to record thoughts and ideas as they arise. They usually end up being quite random, a mix of the brilliant and the mundane, day-to-day worries mixed in with the germs of…
Reading binge
I was on a panel recently at Whitechapel Idea Store with Alex Wheatle and Mark Piggott, discussing “London: fact and fiction”. When I heard a week in advance what the topic was going to be, I thought about all the…
“Ashes” by Matthew Crow
The opening image of Ashes is a powerful one – a group of kids trying to stone a cat to death. The reason? “Something to do”. The tone is set for the rest of the novel. Bleakness, lack of hope,…
“The Dark Child” by Camara Laye
This is a fairly short and simple autobiographical account of a boy growing up in Guinea in the 1930s and 40s. Camara Laye wrote it in 1954 while studying in France, and you can feel the nostalgia for his homeland.…