There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
Why was I disappointed by a novel that everyone else seems to love? Follow me as I try to find the answers.
Review: 912 Batu Road by Viji Krishnamoorthy
A Malaysian debut novelist combines a contemporary love story with a historical narrative of Japanese occupation. I enjoyed one much more than the other, but would recommend it nonetheless.
Borges Marathon, Part 14: The Lottery in Babylon
How do you explain the effects of random chance? Borges invented an all-powerful Lottery governing all possible events in life to help us think through it.
The Echoes by Evie Wyld: Review
My review of a beautifully dark and thought-provoking new piece of literary fiction by Evie Wyld, set between a remote Australian outback village haunted by terrible memories and a London flat inhabited by a disgruntled ghost.
The Future by Naomi Alderman
What kind of future do we want? How would it look if it was based on trust instead of fear? For a novel that starts with the end of the world, The Future has a lot of interesting things to…
Borges Marathon, Part 13: The Circular Ruins
What happens when one man tries to dream another into existence? Jorge Luis Borges imagines this scenario in this thought-provoking story.
November 2022 Reading Roundup
It was an all-fiction month for me in November, involving a 17-year-old sex worker in the US, a novelist seeing her stolen manuscript come to life, a young woman fleeing from London to Jamaica to escape an abusive relationship, and…
Borges Marathon, Part 11: The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim
Only Borges could get away with writing a book review of a book that doesn't exist.
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.