This is Hession’s second novel after the incredible, and now BBC adapted, Leonard and Hungry Paul. Here we follow the titular Panenka (real name Joseph) in his later life, based in the fictional town of Seneca. Even from the title and location alone you know football is involved somewhere and, given his style in his […]
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Welcome to Orrun, a world ruled by the Emperor and guided by a zodiac of God-like powers: Dragon, Bear, Monkey, Fox, Ox, Hound, Tiger and Raven. Each of these animals, almost like martial arts styles, represent personality traits and ways of serving the Empire. Foxes are cunning and quick, making excellent scouts and assassins. Ravens
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Winner of the 2017 Booker Prize, Lincoln in the Bardo is a story of loss and acceptance, or grief and understanding. Is there anything sadder than losing a child? It is against the natural order of things. In this work, Saunders explores the loss of Abraham Lincoln’s son, Willie, during the US Civil War.
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Seascraper was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize and, alongside Universality, was one of the shorter works on offer. Since then, this lovely svelte novel has won the Nero Book Award for fiction and been further nominated for the Walter Scott Prize (2026) for historical fiction, alongside the brilliant Helm. Seascraper is set in
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Sometimes books find you at the right place and time. It’s that time of year where the hustle and bustle has peaked and we are now in need of some peace and quiet. Leonard and Hungry Paul teaches everyone to break free from obligatory constraints and to operate in the peace of now; unshackle and
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Build a world that fits all the people in it. That was Robin Ince’s rallying cry when I went to see him talk about Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal at the Taproom in Stockport, hosted by the great Serenity Booksellers. And isn’t this notion so very important at this moment in time. 2025 has
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Firstly, if you get blurbed by Barack Obama, you’ve got my interest. Exhalation is a collection of nine science fiction short stories. These are not space opera type sci-fi but very much more about human nature simply extrapolated into a science fiction landscape, many of which have a similar appearance to where we are
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The Abundance by Amit Majmudar, first published in 2013, is a lovingly bittersweet story of first generation immigrant parents living in the American mid-west, and their strong ties to Indian culture that their children and grandchildren are trying to leave behind. Very early in the book you hear of the mother’s terminal illness and
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Twenty years in preparation Hall brings us a story of Helm, the only named wind in the UK. Naturally, this prompts the question, ‘Know any other winds?’. I had thought about Scirocco, the Mediterranean southerly that is also synonymous with Volkswagen’s squashed Beetle. But of course, there are others less tied to consumerism. Many of
In publishing it has been a year for highlighting the importance of rivers and water, from Robert Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive? to the release of the paperback edition of Elif Shafak’s There Are Rivers in the Sky. Joining these works in a triumvirate is Saraswati, the debut novel from award-winning short story writer, Gurnaik
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