==Literary fiction==
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{{newreview
|author=Olga Grushin
|title=The Concert Ticket
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''The Concert Ticket'' follows the lives of a family in Soviet Russia who have grown desperately distant from one another. Sergei, the father, is a frustrated musician who longs to play the pre-revolutionary masterpieces of composers like Igor Selinsky but is forced to play the kind of patriotic ditties he despises. His schoolteacher wife, Anna, longs for his love, but is never quite able to get his attention with her shy gestures. Their shiftless son, Alexander, has quietly given up going to school and spends his days hanging around the park, consorting with undesirables. Also living in their house is Anna's silent, elderly mother.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918482</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|summary=Pwyll rules a medieval-style fiefdom in a post-climate change Wales. Life is different in many ways - there's a new-but-old social order built on feudalism and horsepower is the main means of transport. But in many ways it's much the same - people still fight one another, towns still have sink estates, rich boys still have too much time on their hands and precious little meaning in their lives.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Owen Sheers
|title=White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In the old tale, Branwen is the sister of Bendigeidfran - the giant King of Britain. She marries the King of Ireland, who doesn't treat her well. She manages to send Bendigeidfran a message via a tamed starling and war and killings ensue.
In this new tale, a young girl has just walked away from her brothers who, in the wake of the devastating foot and mouth outbreak, are despoiling their heritage by rustling and illegally slaughtering sheep. She meets an old man who tells her a story involving the superstitions about the ravens in the Tower of London, propaganda work during World War II, and an equally doomed love affair.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115030</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Shirley Jackson
|title=We Have Always Lived In The Castle
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mary Katherine Blackwood, also known as Merricat, is eighteen, and lives with her older sister Constance in the family home where 'Blackwoods had always lived'. Merricat quickly draws the reader into her world by a series of matter of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister and death cap mushrooms, and everyone else in her family is dead. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept the house 'steady against the world', shutting out other people, and they live near a village. Merricat believes that 'The people of the village have always hated us', and tells us that she hates them too.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191457</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Deborah Gregory
|title=Dancing With The Dead
|rating=3
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I wanted to read ''Dancing with the Dead'', because I'm interested in family history. The blurb on the back of the book also mentioned Gill – our heroine of the piece – was moving from Bristol (my current home) to Lincolnshire (where I was born and brought up). I felt with all these links, the novel could not fail to interest me – but this was not the case.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529305</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Elizabeth Baines
|title=Too Many Magpies
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your life. Suddenly you see the danger in every situation, and fear and trepidation can be become your constant companions. In this novella, we meet a young mother who is married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their children's futures on a scientific basis, growing their own fruit and vegetables, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until any adverse affects from them were disproved. But after meeting with an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into her world. She begins an affair with him, begins to let things slip at home and with the children, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present danger.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Katherine May
|title=Burning Out
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Violet has it all – a well-paid job, and a luxurious apartment all to herself. Everything is catered for; her meals, her clothes, and her health are all how she would like them to be. But the life she is leading is beginning to take its toll. On the verge of snapping, a drained and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home town. There, she meets someone familiar, a ghost reminding her of how she used to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girl, full of life. Only this isn't a ghost, but a girl living the life Violet once lived – exactly the same. Haunted by the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself and is convinced events will happen again. Events that will in turn haunt the girl.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tove Jansson
|title=The True Deceiver
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Most people of my age will have come across Jansson's work unwittingly, via the televised renditions of the Moomin tales. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book and then of a collection of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Daniel Kehlmann
|title=Me and Kaminski
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=After reviewing several long books, it's been refreshing to read such a fluent yet pared down story as 'Kaminski and Me'. In it, Sebastian Zollner, the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art critic. Kaminski, the proposed subject, was a fashionable painter long ago, but now, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivion. So the second-rate writer is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details to hook the art world and general public.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Hilary Dixon
|title=When Rooks Speak of Love
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Arthur Transcombe is a middle-aged, grey-haired, self-effacing poet. Unremarkable really - on the outside. He has, however, managed to achieve some success with his poems. (Being a guest speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat). He is also a babe magnet!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Malouf
|title=Ransom
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Taking his theme from a small part of Homer's Iliad, Malouf tells the story of the king of Troy, Priam's grief-stricken voyage into the Greek camp to ransom Troy's wealth for the body of his fallen son, Hector, killed by the equally grief-stricken Achilles whose great friend Hector had killed in battle before Achilles took his cruel revenge. Malouf tells the story in sparse, yet lyrical and poetic fashion suggesting the personal stories behind the epic themes that Homer related. It is an exquisitely written piece managing to be both deeply moving as well as a great piece of story telling.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184159</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Vann
|title=Legend of a Suicide
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Some books defy categorisation and that's the case with ''Legend of a Suicide''. Is it Literary Fiction? Is it a series of short stories linked by a common theme, or a novella with supporting pieces? Is it fiction with a strong autobiographical thread running through it? The simple answer to all these questions is ''yes'' – for the book is all that and more. It's also a compelling page-turner – I began reading at ten o'clock last night and finished it at three thirty this morning, resenting every moment away from the book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043784</amazonuk>
}}
