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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author=Jessie Greengrass
|title=An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It
|rating=3
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=The title story, which appears first, is exactly what it says on the tin: one hunter's story of travelling to remote islands to take part in massive culls of great auks, until they were simply gone. It's always hard to believe that species that once numbered in their millions, such as the passenger pigeon, could go extinct so quickly, but when you read about the brutal slaughter tactics here – swinging clubs and boiling birds alive – you can see how a flightless bird was a sitting target. The narrator makes no real attempt to defend himself: the birds were there for the taking; that was that. Still, he regrets their extinction, because 'in any loss you can see a shadow of the way that you will be lost yourself.' (Those interested in the great auk's extinction may also want to read the 2013 novel ''The Collector of Lost Things'' by Jeremy Page.)
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473610850</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Patricia Park
|summary=Little Isla has moved to Hobart, Tasmania from the Australian mainland with her mother and younger brother. Bo is a chef on the Nella Dan, a Danish ship supplying the Antarctic expeditions. Their meeting is just one of life's little moments that carry a greater effect than anyone realises at the time, whether for the better or the worst.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848548540</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=By Night The Mountain Burns
|author=Juan Tomas Avila Laurel
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Sometimes a novel will startle because it tackles a topic totally unknown to us or tells us of lives previously un-imagined. This is the case with By Night the Mountain Burns. However, what is most remarkable about Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel’s novel is how easy it is to slip into the story of a child growing up on an isolated island in Equatorial Guinea. We are not reading about mysterious 'others'. We’re reading about people like ourselves, who live in a different place which has its own constraints – namely poverty and isolation.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276401</amazonuk>
}}