CONTEMPORARY By Sara Lawrence for the Daily Mail Published: 22:01 GMT, 30 January 2020 | Updated: 11:48 GMT, 31 January 2020 GROWN UPS by Marian Keyes (Michael Joseph £20, 656 pp) GROWN UPS by Marian Keyes (Michael Joseph £20, 656 pp) I am a long-time fan of Keyes’s hilarious, alternately heart-warming and heartbreaking, novels. She … Read more
LITERARY FICTION By Anthony Cummins For The Daily Mail Published: 22:02 GMT, 30 January 2020 | Updated: 11:53 GMT, 31 January 2020 THE GUEST BOOK by Sarah Blake (Viking £14.99, 496 pp) THE GUEST BOOK by Sarah Blake (Viking £14.99, 496 pp) After her wartime novel The Postmistress, Sarah Blake returns with a multi-generational saga … Read more
DEBUTS By Fanny Blake for the Daily Mail Published: 22:00 GMT, 6 February 2020 | Updated: 22:00 GMT, 6 February 2020 THE WATER DANCER by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Hamish Hamilton £16.99, 416 pp) THE WATER DANCER by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Hamish Hamilton £16.99, 416 pp) In antebellum Virginia, white people are known as ‘the Quality’ and the … Read more
THRILLERS By Geoffrey Wansell for the Daily Mail Published: 22:00 GMT, 6 February 2020 | Updated: 22:00 GMT, 6 February 2020 THE MEMORY WOOD by Sam Lloyd (Bantam Press £12.99, 384 pp) THE MEMORY WOOD by Sam Lloyd (Bantam Press £12.99, 384 pp) This taut, spooky debut charts the fate of Elissa, a stunningly bright … Read more
HISTORICAL By Eithne Farry For The Daily Mail Published: 22:00 GMT, 6 February 2020 | Updated: 22:00 GMT, 6 February 2020 THE MERCIES by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Picador £14.99, 352 pp) THE MERCIES by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Picador £14.99, 352 pp) In starkly beautiful sentences Kiran Millwood Hargrave, up until now a bestselling children’s author, … Read more
At the start of this slim, intensely absorbing novel about life after shattering loss, a woman loses her bearings in France. She has no interest in the country.
PICTURE THIS By Ciara Dossett For The Daily Mail Published: 22:00 GMT, 6 February 2020 | Updated: 22:00 GMT, 6 February 2020 THE LIVES OF THE OBJECTS Edited by Tristram Hunt (V&A Publishing £30, 256 pp) THE LIVES OF THE OBJECTS edited by Tristram Hunt (V&A Publishing £30, 256 pp) Henry Cole, the first director … Read more
BOOK OF THE WEEK A HISTORY OF SEX by Kate Lister (Unbound £25, 384pp) What a miracle it is that the human race manages to keep reproducing itself, generation upon generation, since attempts to stamp out sexual activity down the ages have been relentless. As Kate Lister, author of this colourful study, makes plain, people … Read more
MEMOIR Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent (One £12.99, 240pp) You’ll be familiar with the magic of the ageless friendship if you’ve ever treasured a close attachment to someone 30 or 40 years older or younger. It’s a magic tinged with poignancy, because you both know that the older one will probably die first, leaving … Read more
SOCIETY A BIT OF A STRETCH: THE DIARIES OF A PRISONER by Chris Atkins (Atlantic Books £16.99, 336pp) Documentary maker Chris Atkins is in a rundown cell with a psychotic prisoner discussing the intricacies of quantum mechanics. He has more prison access than any journalist could dream of, but there’s just one catch: he is … Read more