Tom Rob Smith: Child 44
When the Booker longlist was announced late last month, I don’t think there was anyone who would have expected to see Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 make the cut, including…
Florian Zeller: Julien Parme
Florian Zeller is an author probably best marked as ‘one for the future’, given that he is still to reach thirty, but that hasn’t stopped him in recent years putting…
Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger
If you are tired of Indian novels built on a blend of saffron and saris then Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) may just be the antidote required. It’s take…
Helen Garner: The Spare Room
Helen Garner is a new name to me, having recently discovered a number of her books were available in the Penguin Modern Classics range, albeit only in her native Australia.…
Junot Díaz: The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao
For the rest of the world, who had been waiting over ten years for Díaz’s first novel, following on from his short story collection, Drown, I hope the wait was…
Ali Smith: Girl Meets Boy
When the first books from the Canongate Myths series were launched, I wasn’t too enamoured with the choices of Jeanette Winterson and Margaret Atwood, two authors that I’d read in…
Yoko Ogawa: The Diving Pool
According to the inside flap Yoko Agawa has written more than twenty books and won every major Japanese literary award. Where else is there for her to go? Either it’s…
Belinda Webb: A Clockwork Apple
There’s an old idiom that states you can’t compare apples to oranges but in the case of Belinda Webb’s A Clockwork Apple (2008) you can’t help compare it to Anthony…
Rowan Somerville: The End Of Sleep
The mere mention of Cairo conjures up a collage of images to me – of an aged city caught in the shadow of the Pyramids; of a twisted network of…
Robin Jenkins: The Changeling
For the last few years, I’ve been aware of Robin Jenkins’s books, notably his best known work, The Cone Gatherers, as they were perennials on the Scottish Books shelves of…