Granta best 20 young novelists – Part deux

Back in January, I commented on the forthcoming Granta list of the best 20 young novelists and, in particular, Philip Hensher’s comments thereon. Hensher had made his own suggestions as to who should be on the list – ten certs: Jon McGregor, Zadie Smith, Ned Beauman, Ross Raisin, Joe Dunthorne, Sarah Hall, Adam Foulds, Samantha … Read more

Website statistics

I have just published my latest website statistics. I am not sure if they mean anything, but I note that I have read books from thirteen more countries than six months ago (Bermuda, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar, Maldives, Moldova, San Marino, Seychelles and Uzbekistan) and have reviewed sixty-six books during that … Read more

Hitler and the novel

Why do we seem to like Hitler in our fiction? Last year saw the English translation of Laurent Binet‘s HHhH (HHhH) and next year will see the publication in English of Timur Vermes‘ Er ist wieder da [He’s Back]. Now, the latest twist on the Hitler story is another French book, this one by the … Read more

London Underground

Having read John Lanchester‘s article on the lack of novels involving the London Tube system, I decided to create a list of novels (partially) set on the London Underground Railway. While I did find a few, there were not many impressive works, with far more films, including one that did not make Wikipedia’s list (see … Read more