The company says soaring costs, energy bills and reduced footfall mean it is no longer viable.

In my experience of reading M. John Harrison’s work (see my older posts), reality tends to wear thin, and even the most basic aspects of a conventional novel (such as coherence and meaning) a…

After an extended break, I’m making another attempt at getting back into blogging at least semi-regularly. Maybe it will only be for specific occasions, or a couple of times a month, or maybe…

In her latest novel, Allan steps in a different direction again.

In her latest novel, Allan steps in a different direction again.

Our Shadow Panel picks their 2025 International Booker winner...

Small Boat is the first novel by French philosopher Vincent Delecroix to be translated into English. It’s inspired by real events from 2021, when a dinghy taking migrants from France to the U…

The Narrator of this novel remembers his late friend Fanny. She struggled with her mental health, and could often appear distant, holding herself still within her own body. But there was a lighter …

On the eve of the longlist

The International Booker Prize 2025 longlist of 12 or 13 books will be announced on Tuesday, 25 February 2025 at 2pm (GMT), and the shortlist of six books on Tuesday, 8 April.

Reading friends shadowing the 2025 International Booker Prize. Click to read Shadowing the IBP Substack, by Frances Evangelista, a Substack publication. Launched an hour ago.

In his preface to this book, Gavin Francis writes that his interest in bridges began in childhood, from the Forth Rail Bridge just a few miles from his house, to a Ladybird book about bridges (whic…

2025 has begun, and we are starting the year in Japan. This is the first book by Maki Kashimada to appear in English translation, and it collects together two novellas. I would say the main theme c…

A Happy New Year to one and all, and a very big welcome to #JanuaryInJapan!  As is usually the case, the first month of the year round these parts is set aside for J-Lit, and I’ve got lots of…

2024 was another year when, for whatever reason, I just didn’t click with reading in general as much as I would have liked. There’s no point dwelling on it, I just hope this will turn a…

Visit the post for more.

Gliff is only half of Smith's project.

I was really pleased to learn that Han Kang had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature yesterday. She has become one of my favourite writers that I’ve discovered during the lifetime of th…

This review was first published at Splice in October 2018. *** Meet Keiko Furukura. She has always found it difficult to conform to what her family and wider society consider “normal”. She once sto…

In her first novel, art historian Penelope Curtis imagines two episodes from her family’s history. The first part concerns Nora (Penelope’s grandmother, whom she never knew), a painter …

Today I’m taking part in a blog tour for the new ‘Futures’ series from Melville House – short books in which authors reflect and speculate on the possible future of their subject. The first f…

String of global hits marks rising interest in New Zealand writers while industry voices concern over future arts funding

Each of the three stories collected in Weasels in the Attic is linked by the narrator and his friend Saiki sharing a meal, meals that seem to become a focal point for broader currents at play. The …

Right, new year, new start – or at least, the start of getting back into reading. This 1986 novel begins with a small change that becomes all-consuming. “What would you say if I shaved off my mous...

I don’t know why it happened, but there were times this year when I just fell out of the habit of reading. This is not what I want, and my aim for 2024 is to find my way back in – with this s…

Mike McCormack’s previous novel, Solar Bones, saw one man examine his life and the whole of existence in the same breath. This Plague of Souls also moves from a solitary portrait to the wides…

Man-Eating Typewriter begins with a foreword by the head of Glass Eye Press, a small Soho publisher. It describes how, in 1969, they were contacted by one Raymond Novak, who claimed that in nine mo…

It’s on a day like any other – or maybe like none at all – that Lori finds her partner Joe dead in their Lake District home. She doesn’t see the point in calling for an ambulance, and g…