Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos

When I moved to New York City as a 22-year-old, I immediately loved the chaotic, frenetic energy of the place. I’d grown up in London, another big city, but this was something else. Manhattan seemed like a place where it…
snow by john banville

Snow by John Banville: Review

I was surprised by Snow: it's very different from John Banville's usual style. There's some beautiful prose as usual, but in the end it's quite a formulaic detective novel.

The View From Belmont by Kevyn Alan Arthur

The View From Belmont raises interesting questions of race and gender amid the barbarousness of a slave-owning society. The dual narrative was a promising technique, but it didn't feel fully realised to me. I'd have liked more of 1990s Trinidad…

Book Review: Cambridge by Caryl Phillips

This dual narrative set in a 19th-century Caribbean island is an interesting exploration of a critical period, but the narratives feel unbalanced: we spend a lot of time immersed in the prejudices of the plantation owner's daughter, while the account…

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

How can human relationships be formed without shared memories? Can mathematical order overcome the chaos of a life without memory? Yoko Ogawa's novel explores these fascinating themes through the simple story of a professor and his housekeeper.