TRENDS
Listening to a writer’s voice
Plot and character are all very well, but it’s a novelist’s unique voice on the page that can make the difference between a memorable work of fiction and an ordinary one.
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Murder and mayhem in Mumbai
Two new works of crime fiction set in the past continue the tradition of authors using Mumbai as a backdrop for novels of wrongdoing and suspense.
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When the government keeps track of your dreams
Ismail Kadare’s 'The Palace of Dreams' is an allegory of a totalitarian state that examines the dreams of every citizen. It’s both an murky mirror of former circumstances and a far-seeing fable of mass surveillance.
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A novel that explores the disappearance of the Palestinians
At a time when the conflict in Gaza is spinning out of control, Ibtisam Azem’s audacious 'The Book of Disappearance' asks what would happen if all the Palestinians in the area vanished overnight.
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The art of not writing
Over two million books are published every year, not to mention countless essays, opinion pieces, and other articles. Here’s how to stop adding to the torrent.
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How Jhumpa Lahiri’s new novel is like Edward Hopper’s paintings
The author’s 'Whereabouts' deals with incidents in the life of a professor in Rome and is shot through with solitude, detachment, and a sense of individuals in the shadows of their pasts.
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If reading isn’t a pleasure, why bother?
Antonia Fraser’s 'The Pleasure of Reading' is a welcome respite at a time when concentrating on a book is next to impossible.
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Does korrect speling matter?
British universities are being told not to deduct marks for spelling mistakes and only judge students on ideas and knowledge of the subject. Is the ability to spell important?
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Two French novels on the effects of colonialism
New works in English translation by Joseph Andras and Kamel Daoud offer vivid and contrasting accounts of the impact of foreign domination.
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Reviewing readers instead of books
In today’s age, everyone’s a critic. It’s time to turn the tables and review not just books, but also the way people read them
TRENDS
Murder Most Cosy
How did a 50-year-old debut author’s crime novel beat Obama’s memoir on the bestseller lists and sell close to a million copies in hardback, with film rights bought by Spielberg?
BUSINESS
Two great books on weapons of mass instruction in Syria
Ten years after the start of the Syrian civil war, a look at two books on the legacy of a secret library in a town near Damascus.
FEATURES
Tales of many cities
How do writers of non-fiction write about cities, and can their books capture the essence of a metropolis?
BUSINESS
Uniqlo-Murakami tie-up: Some enticing brand extension possibilities for novelists
Now that Uniqlo is about to launch a line of T-shirts inspired by Haruki Murakami, here’s a way for other novelists to cash in, too.
FEATURES
The use and abuse of the thesaurus
The compendium of words that Peter Mark Roget compiled over 150 years ago has many fans, and quite a few critics, too.
TRENDS
Existential threats are everywhere nowadays
The word 'existential' once referred to a school of philosophy. How did it come to stand for things that threaten our way of life?
BUSINESS
The Empire Strikes Back | Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain
Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain peers through a fog of amnesia and nostalgia to investigate how colonialism made Britain what it is today.
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The Jokers Review: Taking jest to the corridors of power
In Albert Cossery’s novel, some citizens plan to unseat the local governor by taking ridicule to an extreme.
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The Hooghly and the World
An absorbing new book shines a light on the time when the Hooghly was a global waterway attracting merchants, missionaries, statesmen, soldiers and others from all over.
FEATURES
Caution: Reading books may expose you to different points of view
Kafka once said that a book must be an ice axe for the frozen sea within us. Here’s a tongue-in-cheek look at how disclaimers could blunt that statement.
TRENDS
Turning authors into adjectives
In decades to come, maybe contemporary authors will be turned into adjectives, too. Sethian could mean anything redolent of 1950s India; Rooneyesque could refer to millennial angst.
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Can handwriting survive, and does it matter?
The importance we grant to handwriting as we know it only reflects our recent history and culture.
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Susanna Clarke’s new novel is a graceful, compelling evocation of a quarantined life
With its eccentricity, its compelling readability, and its ability to reach a satisfying conclusion, Piranesi is quite simply among the more captivating novels of the quarantined year that we have just lived through.
TRENDS
At the end of the year, some thoughts on endings of fiction
Some endings force readers to reflect and reconsider and some others can be shocking yet apt because of careful foreshadowing and a growing sense of necessity.
