==Literary fiction==
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{{newreview
|author=Janette Jenkins
|title=Little Bones
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=While this might sound like the afterlife of a brilliant and unlikely cabaret mimic, it's not. It's a rich, evocative and engaging novel set in the last years of Victoria's reign, in the depths of her darkest London. Fate - and being abandoned by, in turn, her mother and older sister - leaves Jane Stretch living with and working for a doctor and his lumpen, housebound wife. Jane is alternatively called an 'unfortunate' and a 'cripple' for her disabilities and distorted frame, but she has enough bookish intelligence to pass herself off as an assistant to the doctor, who only ever does one operation - abortions, for music hall artistes. The plot is evidently gearing up to reveal how dangerous such a criminal business might be, for the both of them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070118194X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|summary=This is a beautifully presented book with its enigmatic front cover and equally enigmatic title. After reading the blurb on the back cover I was left with a feeling of wishy-washiness however, as regards the storyline. Unfortunately, the contents confirmed this for me.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956493602</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kevin Wilson
|title=The Family Fang
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=
Annie Fang and her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be again. But it has come to this - her film actress career is on the rocks with the kind of self-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writers, and he - well, he's here because of a jumbo spud gun. Neither want life back at home, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents - without much planning, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - in a whole career of performance art pieces, designed to enact a point of life or just cause havoc.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Philip Roth
|title=Nemesis
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1944, Newark, New Jersey. Summer. Hot. Bucky Cantor, a young Jewish man, is gym teacher and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the district, helping all those interested become fit young men, able to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing - serving in the forces. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at hand, if it were cooler, and if there were no polio epidemic happening. But there is, and nobody knows what is causing it. Is it flies? Is it a gang of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood to neighbourhood? Is it blacks, germs on money - is it in fact Cantor himself, draining all the youthful vigour from his charges under a blistering sun?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542269</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tom Wolfe
|title=A Man in Full
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I'll hold my hands up right now and say that no, I haven't read Wolfe's much-acclaimed [[The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe|The Bonfire of the Vanities]]. I've heard a lot about it, over the years, in newspapers etc that I almost feel that I ''have'' read it, mind you. So I'm really pleased to have the chance to read this much-awaited novel. At a stonking 700+ pages most of which are packed tight with Wolfe's particular style of prose, It's a veritable feast for readers.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554771</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=J M Coetzee
|title=Scenes From Provincial Life
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='Scenes from Provincial Life' is a compilation of JM Coetzee's three fictionalised memoirs: 'Boyhood' first published in 1997, 'Youth' published in 2002 and [[Summertime by J M Coetzee|Summertime]] published in 2009. In one sense they clearly belong together in this single edition and yet they were initially published separately. What strikes the reader of this compilation is the change in style and focus of the third book in the series.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554853</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Henning Mankell
|title=Daniel
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A young Hans Bengler has decided to leave his homeland of Sweden and make an expedition across the inhospitable Kalahari Desert. Brave - or extremely foolish. I'm sticking with the latter. My reasons are that Bengler is portrayed by Mankell as a rather dull, insular and unimaginative young man. He doesn't really get along with his family (such as they are) nor does he seem to have many friends. It's also plain that he's desperate to leave his cold Sweden for warmer climes. But at what cost?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009948143X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mohammed Hanif
|title=Our Lady of Alice Bhatti
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Alice is nervous. She's being interviewed for a job at the local hospital. Even although her nursing skills are far from ideal, she believes she's in with a shout. She presents herself at her charming best and it seems to work. She's now employed and earning some much-needed money. She knows she'll have to work really hard and probably long hours too. The hospital in question is in downtown Karachi: a seething mass of patients many of whom have no choice but to lie in corridors etc.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082051</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Evelio Rosero
|title=Good Offices
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Here is a church in Bogota nobody seems to want to leave. In part one it is a large group of the elderly, given a weekly, tasteless meal from the charitable funds, but bitterly refusing to quit the place, making our main character Tancredo fear for his passivity. In part two it is the congregation, as a rare need for a stand-in priest seems to be a blessing. And in part three it is that priest himself, stuck among the household of Tancredo, the girl who loves him, and chorus of three weird old women.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050672</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Barry Unsworth
|title=The Quality of Mercy
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='The Quality of Mercy' picks up the story of the author's Booker Prize-winning 'Sacred Hunger' although if you haven't read the first book, you won't be greatly disadvantaged as the relevant story lines are explained. What you might miss out on is some of the feeling for a few of the main characters, most notably the Irish fiddler, Sullivan who, when this book picks up in spring 1767, has just escaped from prison where the remaining shipmates of the slave ship, the 'Liverpool Merchant' await their trial of piracy. Slavery and abolition thereof remains a central theme of this sequel, but the book draws some poignant similarities with those in bondage due to poverty, and particularly those working in the coal mines of County Durham.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091937124</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Zadie Smith
|title=White Teeth
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Some books sneak up on you. Others are thrown at you from every corner of the media to the extent that you almost make a conscious decision NOT to read them, or at least, not yet. Let the furore die down. If they're still around in a few years, your subconscious whispers, maybe we'll go see what all the fuss was about.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241954576</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael Ondaatje
|title=The Cat's Table
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=For the first half or so of this book, which sees an 11 year old boy called Michael (or Mynah to his friends) leave his home of Ceylon to travel to school in England, I wasn't really sure if it even had a plot. Focusing on his journey in the 1950's aboard the ship to England, although occasionally leaping forward to his later life where he gives us tantalising glimpses as to what happened to his fellow passengers after the voyage, this originally seems to be nothing more than a series of incredibly well-drawn character sketches. In fairness, I should say that ''nothing more'' is rather harsh in this case – the men, women and children Ondaatje creates, from a supposedly cursed rich man seeking a cure, to a friendly thief, to Michael's beautiful cousin Emily, are so beautifully conjured that I could have lived without a plot perfectly happily. However, we eventually realise there's a little more to this narrative, and that this skilful author has been foreshadowing the events at the novel's climax all along.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093614</amazonuk>
}}
