Tag: featured

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner: Review

I think I have a problem with over-hyped books. Although the hype is never true, I always end up believing it, and come to a book with ridiculously high expectations that can never be satisfied. A similar thing happened a…
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Review of The Pimlico Kid by Barry Walsh

Writing about Indian Magic recently reminded me of another book set in the 1960s, one I read a while ago and wanted to write about, but never got around to. That book is The Pimlico Kid by Barry Walsh, a…
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Indian Magic by Balraj Khanna

Lately I’ve been reading quite a few books with complex structures and experimental elements. In the middle of all that, it was good to read Indian Magic, a simple enough story told in a traditional, chronological narrative. We start with…
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The Chocolate Shop Perverts by Ernest Alanki

Outsiders make great literary characters. Their otherness makes them naturally interesting characters, and it’s also fascinating to see “normal” people and social conventions through their eyes, shining a fresh light on things that usually seem very familiar. Also, don’t we all feel…
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Pardon my appearance…

New year, new website. I’m giving the design and layout a long-overdue overhaul, as well as making the site a bit more friendly for those of you using mobiles and tablets. So things may look a little strange while I…
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Review of Glow by Ned Beauman

Glow is a wonderfully inventive book, with some beautiful writing. Unlike Beauman’s previous two books, this one has a contemporary setting, and it’s very contemporary, taking on things like corporate globalisation, drug culture and surveillance. The plot is entirely implausible, but…
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London

London Fiction: a Reading List

A couple of years ago I was involved in a panel event on London fiction. As part of my preparation I decided to put together a list of novels that are set in London and shed some interesting light on the city. Here’s what…
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Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda

Peirene Press is known for publishing contemporary European literature in translation, but its latest offering takes us a little further afield, to Tripoli in the 1960s. Author Kamal Ben Hameda lives in Holland and writes in French, but this novella is set…
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