Oscar Wilde said: “A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction”. For Lucy Grealy, the former is true and the latter is possibly the reason why she was a writer at all. This IS an autobiography, but focuses
Birds of America is a collection of twelve short stories by Lorrie Moore. It is essentially a series of portraits of the disaffected, aimless and the emotionally insecure. The tragedies of Moores characters are that of the everyday the loss
Known as the Godfather of Faction for seamlessly integrating real people into his fictional plots, Frederick Forsyth is the author of a series of polished, well-researched and compelling thrillers from his 1971 best-seller The Day Of The Jackal – which was
Winner of numerous literary awards, ‘Birthday Letters’ is worth reading for the insight into his relationship with Sylvia Plath. Hughes’ writing is elegant and measured but there is an underlying arrogance in his viewpoint and style. It
Harley Altmyer is 18. Once upon a time, he was thinking of getting a job, living at home for a couple more years with the family he loved. Then, hopefully, he’d buy a house, get married and maybe even have a few kids himself but that was before his life turned
Seven Types of Ambiguity is the third book from award-winning Australian writer Elliot Perlman. Published to critical acclaim in his native land, it has been compared with Jonathan Franzen’s successful and similarly wide-ranging The Corrections.
47-year-old May, married to Clem for 27 years with six sons, wakes up one morning to discover her husband’s secret activities have left her facing threats of eviction and poverty. As if her life wasn’t hectic enough – dealing with her eccentric
He has his detractors but this is probably Amis’ best book. It concerns the degenerate hedonism of an English film-maker trying to make it big in the Big Apple. He reels from one social blunder and pointless one-night stand to another in a haze of booze and drugs
Akin to watching a black and white film, Cesare Pavese’s Among Women Only is filled with lingering moments and dramatic scenes that are occasionally punctuated with philosophic dialogue. Set in post war Italy, location Turin, the novel is based around
This is the first book McEwan won the Booker prize for (Atonement being the second) and it’s a short but gripping tale. It concerns an ambitious journalist and his composer best friend. They are as opposite as they are similar but when a row over a potentially explosive
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