A Small Resurrection: A Review of Banana Yoshimoto’s Asleep The combination of very realistic, interesting, and believable characters, with a hint of supernatural epiphany which turns the ordinary into something magic and extraordinary, is very powerful. With delicate strokes of…
Category: Literary Fiction Reviews
A Review of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections
The style is edged in irony as one might expect with such a subject but there are few quotable passages. Franzen is more concerned with the production of a seamless narrative. Although there are no solecisms, a few sentences are…
A Review of Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift
A Review of Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift Humboldt’s Gift has its picaresque side and the selection of types and traumas may be looked at as modern translations of Huck’s own troubles and concerns. The honesty of the writer is a…
A Review of This is the Place by Carolyn Howard-Johnson
The book is about how the persecuted become the persecutors; how those who have suffered from bigotry and prejudice become bigoted and prejudiced. It is about “us” and “them”, about inclusion and exclusion, about the comforts and benefits of belonging…
A Review of Isabel Allende’s Portrait in Sepia
Portrait in Sepia is a very easy to read, well researched, straightforward narrative, which is interesting for its historical context, and perhaps relaxing, albeit devoid of serious philosophical depths, real characterisation, or linguistic innovation. Reviewed by Magdalena Ball Portrait in Sepia…
A Review of Hooking Up by Tom Wolfe
Despite the occasional whine, the self-aggrandisement which is rampant throughout the essays, some of which read like a prelude to an autobiography which must surely be in the works, Hooking Up is a worthwhile read, if only for the genius which comes…
A review of Sue Gough’s The Nether Regions
The Nether Regions is a marvellous novel, coupling linguistic beauty with humour, psychological fascination and intensity. Reviewed by Magdalena Ball The Nether Regions is Sue Gough’s first adult novel, but she isn’t new to writing. She has written 17 books,…
A review of Max Sollitt’s The Correspondence Course
How do we define good writing? Are there clear boundaries between writing genres, fact and fiction, history and theory, writing and criticism? These are some of the questions raised by Max Sollitt’s first novel The Correspondence Course, which defies its own definition…
A review of Karen Sedaitis’ Soul Dark Soil
Humus-rich Food for the Soul: Karen Sedaitis’ Soul Dark Soil Sedaitis’ work gets under the reader’s skin; goes deeper than the details of her stories, and even when she is describing something ugly, like dismemberment, rot, abduction, physical, or emotional…
A Review of Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish
In its gorgeous use of language, its extraordinary structure, its ambitiously realised depths, and above all, the magic it works on its reader, Gould’s Book of Fish is a masterpiece. Read it for the interesting story, and find yourself, like Hammett, lost…