Ian McEwan: On Chesil Beach
While most of the Booker debate regarding Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach seems to be about its length and whether it qualifies as a novel, I say it doesn’t actually…
Indra Sinha: Animal’s People
Novels from India are something that seem to make their way to my shelves but never get read (a few examples being Arundhati Roy’s The God Of Small Things, Vikram…
Peter Ho Davies: The Welsh Girl
When it comes to fiction I tend to have a preference that excludes novels revolving around war. No real reason – it’s just a topic that has never interested me.…
Gilbert Adair: Buenas Noches Buenos Aires
That Gilbert Adair’s Buenas Noches Buenos Aires opens with an emphasis on how true the ensuing story is, the reader has every right to be suspicious. But, other than a…
Lloyd Jones: Mister Pip
Already having taken the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones now has its sights firmly set on the Man Booker Prize 2007, having been recently…
Julienne Van Loon: Road Story
Road Story by Julienne Van Loon is not a novel I would have ever picked up by free choice. I’d never even heard of it when it was given to…
Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez: The Story Of A Shipwrecked Sailor
Originally published as a serial in a Colombian newspaper back in 1955, The Story Of A Shipwrecked Sailor, to my surprise given other Márquez titles, is a piece of non-fiction.…
Patrick McGrath: The Grotesque
Patrick McGrath’s debut novel, The Grotesque, tells the story of Sir Hugo Coal, a paleontologist who, after a fall, has become a vegetable. Able only to watch the world around…
Ian Fleming: Live And Let Die
After a lack-lustre introduction to James Bond in Casino Royale, a book with two memorable scenes, one for being an overlong dialogue explaining the ins and outs of baccarat, I…
Erskine Caldwell: Tobacco Road
Written in 1932 and set during the Great Depression of that time, Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road blesses us with a look into the hearts and minds of white sharecroppers in…