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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bruce DuffyMatthew Tree|title=Disaster was my GodWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The life of Arthur Rimbaud must be one of the most outrageous in literary history, Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more scandalous than Wildeto be different from his father, more self-destructive than Malcolm Lowery, Rimbaud was the boy poet a drunk and iconoclast who took on the literary establishment chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at end any of the nineteenth century his artistic passions all failed miserably and wonwho had endless crises of self confidence. So Duffy's fictional account, based closely around the actual facts of Rimbaud's life, was bound Tim applied himself to be an exciting and furioushis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and he doesn't disappoint. This is a difficult book to put downset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846685273</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreview|author=Kevin Brophy|title=The Berlin Crossing|rating=4.5Frontpage|genreisbn=Literary FictionB0C47LV1PC|summary=It's the 1990s and Herr Doktor Ritter - to give Michael his full title - is about to lose his teaching job. Although a German national, he teaches English. Apparently the Social Review Committee has been doing some 'reviewing' lately and it doesn't look good for Michael.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755380851</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFragility|author=German Sadulaev|title=I Am A Chechen!Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=That exclamation mark in the title says Can you make a lot. It says that, in spite of everything, in spite of Sadulaev leaving his homeland, it still tugs at his heartstrings - and will probably do so throughout the rest of his life. The short author's note at the beginning ends with the arresting sentence - ''Sadulaev's work has unleashed heated debate in Russia.Yo birthing person'' joke? And I'm thinkingif you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, brave author indeed and I also couldn't wait to find out what all would it land? The catch is that the fuss was aboutanswer for both could well be.... no.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532352</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Otto de KatMosby Woods|title=JuliaA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The book opens with Chris as an elderly man who West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is nearing the end best course of his lifeaction. Governments are flailing. Turn A war here, a page or two and he push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is, in factactual charge. Imagine then, deadthere was a man with precognition. Suicide apparentlyImagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. It's all very sad. He lived alone and a paid employeeThat man would be valuable, his young driver, found him right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in his studyhistory. 'Suicide for the posh' his driver thinks looking at the corpseImagine then, that this man loses this ability. But we have What would governments do to travel get it back down the decades to find out why. ?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050559</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Howard J Booth (editor)0571379559|title=The Cambridge Companion to Rudyard KiplingHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Rudyard Kipling''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, born but instead, she lives in India in 1865the house on the riverbank, is still the youngest ever Nobel literature laureatebuilt of broken bricks. He was a prolific author and at Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the turn passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the century up delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the first World War rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an immensely popular one. Even now he remains the most frequently quoted of all English authors (assumption when Max is out with the possible exception of Shakespeare) – albeit often taken out of contexthis mother that she's his nanny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521136636</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Art SpiegelmanKay Chronister|title=MetaMAUSDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=Graphic NovelsDystopian Fiction|summary=Before the Holocaust was turned into [[The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne|With a child-like near-fable world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for all]]humanity, and before post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it was the focus of superb history books such as [[Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder|this]]is a robotic takeover, it became a family saga world devoid of water or a father relating his experiences to nuclear holocaust, this genre is a son, who then drew it all - featuring animals not way for humans - [[Maus to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Art Spiegelman|Maus]]. To celebrate the twentyKay Chronister is a new work of post-five years since then, we have this brilliant look back at apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the creation of an equally brilliant volumefears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670916838</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Javier MariasEric LaRocca|title=While the Women are SleepingThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesHorror|summary=The first thing the trivially minded will note Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that this is not a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the complete edition end of While the Women are Sleepingstory, for beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not all the like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the original Spanish volume are herehorrors of illness, grief and humiliation. You might think Horrors thatlinger and are harder to defeat than any 's because some have been hived off for a future 'best ofBig Bad' compilation. But if this isn't the best of Javier Marias, then I don't know what is. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553929</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph HellerMadelaine Lucas|title=Catch 22Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=At the heart of the very black comedy that is ''Catch 22Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity' is Captain Yossarian' Told from a retrospective view, a World War II American bombardier, who wants to survive young woman unravels the waryear-long relationship that once defined her. Flying repeated combat missions is undermining his sanityOverlaid with later wisdom, and surely the narrator relives the affair with a mad man should be grounded? But if he asks twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to be grounded, he demonstrates its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an absolutely sane concern isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for his own safety. If he is sane, he canSalt'' details the 24-year-old narrator't be grounded. Thiss deepening relationship with her older lover, his doctor tells himdepicting its all-consuming nature, is catch 22how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099529114</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas E KennedyMichael Grothaus|title=Falling SidewaysBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Kennedy, although a New Yorker, has lived in Copenhagen for over twenty years so he'll have a good feel for the European slant on the novel, I would think. It is one of four called the Copenhagen Quartet. The top brass, the movers and the shakers at the 'Tank' are introduced to the reader one by one But fearing something and have a whole chapter devoted having it come to their individual lives, both professional and privatepass are two different things. So And I'm willing to bet most of what we get a very good idea indeed of their homesfear will never happen, their neighbourhoods, their families and perhaps more importantly, their thoughts on the Tank and of their colleaguesor we can take steps to change it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408812398</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice HoffmanJennifer Saint|title=The DovekeepersAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Helene adores her father but hates her mother, who neglects her and sees her ''I was as worthy as nothing more than an inconvenienceany one of them. She grows up with the realisation I would get on board that the only way that her mother can hurt her is to sack her French governess – the only person who has ever tried to give Helene a stable upbringingship, I vowed. The winds of war blow them all from a fictional KievI would take my place, to a harsh St Petersburg and on to a snowy Finland to end up – finally – not just in France at the end name of the First World Wargoddess. Helene's father has made a lot of money from mining in Siberia but whilst It was for the family might have money – ridiculous amounts sake of it – they have nothing elsemy name, too.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185570</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kenzaburo OeAmanthi Harris|title=The Silent CryBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Featuring rioting and looting of corporate supermarkets and anger against immigrantsPadma, this is a timely re-issue of Nobel Prize for Literature winner’s Kenzaburo Óe’s 1967 classic ''The Silent Cry'' which was cited by the Nobel committee as his key work.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688078</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hector Tobar|title=The Barbarian Nurseries|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Torres-Thompsons seem to have it all. A beautiful homeyoung Sri Lankan, two healthy boys and enough money not has returned to have to worry about practical matters. The cherry the Villa Hibiscus on the cake is their employment southern coast of their maid Araceliher home country. She works like This is a trouper and keeps the large house spick and spanplace she spent her formative years. She It is lucky enough to have her own private quarters (if small and rather basic) in not a place she was born into, but the back garden areaone she thinks of as home. She knows within herself that How she should came to be gratefulat the Villa, how it became her home, should really be jumping up and down with glee and thanking the machinations that have flowed through her lucky stars to have life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this jobgentle and yet subtly violent novel. She Padma's managed present fails to escape the poverty her past and violence of Mexico after all. But as she goes about her daily housekeeping duties she feels much like some alien living on another plant. Planet America. Araceli is young, single and childless and at times she misses the hustle and bustle musical score of her old life. And here Tobar gives an excellent account of the affluent part of LA where the Torres-Thompson's live - ' ... in this house on a hill high above film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the ocean, on a cul-de-sac absent of pedestrians or playing children, absent of traffic ..Villa.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444726757</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alistair MacLeod178563335X|title=No Great MischiefSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=No Great Mischief is When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a novel which captures the essence of belonging PCC meeting and the wondering why they're held when you need to be pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a part of onesobbing parishioner. Thelma's historydaughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. This Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is the story of a small part of Clann Calum Ruadhlovely place, the people of Red Calum, emigrants but Rachel is struggling to Canada. It sweeps from contemporary Toronto to evoke Cape Breton in develop a real bond with the fifties parish - and back to the clearances she's in awe of Scottish history. MacLeod tells the tale with the dignity and stature of an ancient mythvicar, holding up to our gaze what it means to be a part of a raceGail, a family but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a placewalk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099283921</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Giraldi1398515388|title=Busy MonstersThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Charles Homar loves his Gillian. He's proved First of all, it to uswas the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, if not to herwhich created the tsunami and this, by going after her possessivein turn, jealous state trooper of an ex with caused the intent to kill - if only ended up rescuing a cat insteadnuclear meltdown. But lo The result was complete and beholdutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, she's declared she's off to discover and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the real love list of her life priorities but - six months after the giant squidtsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Failing to stop this, Charlie spends too long with He wasn't a Nessie obsessive, then goes on a hunt of his own - for Bigfoot, all dog person but the while, chapter by chapter, sending convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his narrative of car door and Tamon the same to a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographical, frivolous columnsdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colson Whitehead0989715337|title=Zone OnePapa on the Moon|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This beautiful, slim volume has won no less than six literary prizes. Murgia paints an early and evocative picture of ''Some frogs had gotten into the young central character, Maria as she makes mud tartswell. But this innocent activity is about to come to an abrupt halt. Her birth mother struggles to feed and clothe all her children (Maria is the fourth child and is really a nuisance) so when an opportunity arises which 'solves the problem of Maria' if you like, then she grabs it with both hands. Maria is quickly and rather unceremoniously adopted by an older woman who just happens to be a widow. She has no children of her own and seems to lead a rather lonely, insular life. She is old enough to be a grandmother, let alone a mother. Will she be able to cope with a noisy youngster under her roof? You wonder why she'd want to take in a raggedy child, or any child for that matter, in the first place. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050451</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joan LeegantDaisy Hildyard|title=Wherever You GoEmergency
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=
{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Philip RothSally Oliver |title=NemesisThe Weight of Loss |rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=1944Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, Newarkshe awakes to find strange, New Jerseythick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Summer. Hot. Bucky CantorHer GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a young Jewish man, is gym teacher and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the districtphysical reaction to her grief, helping all those interested become fit young men, able recommends she go to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing - serving in the forces. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer stay at handNede, if it were cooler, and if there were no polio epidemic happeningan experimental new treatment centre in Wales. But there Yet something strange is, happening to Marianne and nobody knows what is causing it. Is it flies? Is it the other patients at Nede: a gang metamorphosis of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to neighbourhood? Is it blacks, germs on money - is it in fact Cantor himselfoverwhelm her, draining all the youthful vigour Nede offers her release from his charges under this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a blistering sun?terrible price: that of identity itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542269</amazonuk>086154112X }} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom WolfeNatalia Garcia Freire|title=A Man in FullThis World Does Not Belong To Us
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I'll hold my hands up right now and say that noEarly comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I haven't read Wolfe's much-acclaimed [[The Bonfire of will agree with the Vanities by Tom Wolfe|The Bonfire of the Vanities]]. Ifirst – tremendous is no understatement – but 've heard a lot about it, over delight' is perhaps using the years, expression in newspapers etc that I almost feel that a way I ''have'' read it, mind youm not familiar with. So I'm really pleased have to have confess my ignorance of the chance to read this muchSpanish-awaited novellanguage literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. At a stonking 700+ pages most of which are packed tight with Wolfe's particular style of proseFrom the little I have read (in translation, ItI don's t read Spanish) there does seem to be a veritable feast for readerstendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554771</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A young Hans Bengler has decided to leave his homeland 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of Sweden and make an expedition across three women who live in the inhospitable Kalahari Desertheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Brave - or extremely foolish. I'm sticking with the latter. My reasons are that Bengler is portrayed by Mankell as a rather dullCassandra, Clytemnestra, insular and unimaginative young man. He doesn't really get along with his family (such as they Elektra are) nor does he seem to have many friendsall bit players in the story of the Trojan War. It's also plain Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that he's desperate to leave his cold Sweden for warmer climesoften the silent women have the most compelling stories and the most extreme furies. But at what cost?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009948143X</amazonuk>1472273915
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mohammed Hanif8409290103|title=Our Lady of Alice BhattiIf Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Alice is nervousTwenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. She's being interviewed for Patrick sent the money regularly and a job at correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the local hospital. Even two 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 we hear more about what Lowry has to worksay than Patrick. She It wasn't that Lowry senior didn's now employed and earning some much-needed money. She knows shet care for his son, it was that he didn'll t care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to work really hard his wife and probably long hours tooother children. The hospital in question is in downtown Karachi: a seething mass of patients many of whom have no choice but alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to lie in corridors etcget the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082051</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Evelio RoseroAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Good OfficesRed is My Heart
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, black and white and red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas.
|isbn=1913547183
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B098FFFBH9
|title=Snowcub
|author=Graham Fulbright
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Here Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a church competition entry to highlight the way in Bogota nobody seems to want to leavewhich human beings exploit the animal world. In part one it is She gets a large group great deal of the elderlysupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, given a weeklylecturer at Imperial College, tasteless meal from the charitable fundsLondon, but bitterly refusing to quit the placemother Kate and her twin, making our main character Tancredo fear for his passivityNick. In part two it is Kate runs the congregationfamily business, as a rare need for a stand-toy shop called Cornucopia in priest seems to be a blessing. And in part three it Putney, which is that priest himself, stuck among the household where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of Tancredo, the girl who loves him, and chorus of three weird old womeninformation: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050672</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Barry UnsworthYancey Williams|title=The Quality Crosshairs of Mercythe Devil|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='The Quality of Mercy' picks up the story of the author's Booker PrizeAward-winning 'Sacred Hunger' although if you haven't read the first bookcrime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, you wonfrom Eddie't be greatly disadvantaged as the relevant story lines are explained. What you might miss out on is some s point of view - in room 315 of the feeling for a few Garden of the main charactersEden nursing home, most notably the Irish fiddlerwith only a trusty nursing aide, Sullivan whoJenkins, when this book picks up for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in spring 1767, has just escaped from prison where the remaining shipmates -trade of the slave shipwriting though, the 'Liverpool Merchant' await their trial of piracy. Slavery and abolition thereof remains a central theme of this sequelso here, but the book draws some poignant similarities with those in bondage due to povertyfor his readers, and particularly those working in the coal mines of County Durhamare his wanderings through his life's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091937124</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Zadie Smith0008421714|title=White TeethMrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Some books sneak up The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on youthe last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Others are thrown at you from every corner of Every day Mrs March went to the media local patisserie to the extent buy olive bread but on that you almost make a conscious decision NOT to read themparticular morning, Patricia asked, or at leastas she was wrapping the bread, not yet. ''but isn't this the first time he's based a character on you?'' Let She mentioned that Johanna, the furore die downprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. If theyPerhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''re still around in a few yearsweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, your subconscious whispersunloved, maybe weunloveable wretch.''ll go see what all the fuss was about. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241954576</amazonuk>
}}