Ned Beauman’s first two novels Boxer, Beetle and The Teleportation Accident were wonderfully wordy and esoteric highlights on the literary calendar. Strange, extremely well written and historically mind-bending, they were the sort of novels you’d find being passed around from friend to friend with an assertive plea to “read this weird book.” The Teleportation Accident cemented the love of critics and booksellers as it was longlisted for the 2012 Man Booker prize, and now he’s back and hopefully poised to make an impact on a wider audience with Glow. It’s a little […]
A charming and evocative tale of friendship, love, music and small-town life.
Shotgun Lovesongs centres around five school friends meeting up again for a wedding in their hometown after going their different ways. Kip is a successful and impetuous financier returning home and craving recognition from the locals; Lee is a Bon Iver-esque musician, famous for his lonely and lo-fi first album recorded in a barn but now regretting his fame; Ronny is a former rodeo star and recovering alcoholic with a damaged past; while Beth and Henry are a long-married couple running the family farm and struggling […]
A dark and claustrophobic novel about self-image, art and co-dependency.
Grotesque and self-absorbed characters? Check. Inventive and prevalent profanity? Check. A dark and fearless sense of humour? Check. Gratuitous and queasy sex scenes? Check. There can be no doubt; we are diving deep into Irvine Welsh territory. But while some aspects of Welsh’s work haven’t changed, The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins breaks new ground for the author. It is his first novel to only feature point-of-view narration from female characters, and also his first novel from a fully American perspective. It’s a raucous ride through the […]
A superb layperson’s guide to DNA and genetics, told with a smile and charm.
It starts with a papercut. The book that is, not the origin of life. Rutherford starts by breaking down exactly what happens when you cut your finger in a jaw-dropping three-page extravaganza of cells, electrical signals and scintillating prose that puts you in a state of awe. Awesome is a word that is regularly overused, but one that really does apply here when we are talking about such astounding ideas and realisations, with this minute level of detail illustrating just how finely tuned every little aspect of […]
A witty and satirical take on social networking, society and privacy.
The Circle is the world’s biggest social network. Part Google, part Facebook and all encompassing, it’s a seemingly benevolent force that everybody is signed up with, and the workplace to aspire to. So when Mae Holland is offered a job, it isn’t hard to see why she’s so enamoured with it, rising her way up the food chain and buying into everything that entails. There are tell-tale signs that the company might have more power and reach than necessary, but she brushes them off, even […]
In the beginning was the word.
What makes a human? Is it bone, flesh, or muscle? The brain and central nervous system? Or is it the words we think, speak or put down on paper? Strange Bodies is an unusual thriller with a literary bent that verges on unsettling at times. Dr Nicholas Slopen has been dead for a year. So when he turns up at the door of an old girlfriend, looking and sounding different but otherwise identical, she doesn’t bat an eyelid. Perhaps it was a case of mistaken […]
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