Waifs and strays: Gliff, by Ali Smith, reviewed
Two lonely, recalcitrant children, Briar and Rose, find themselves among a bunch of other rag-tag misfits resisting ‘re-education’ by the brutal regime in power
Familiar scenarios: Our Evenings, by Alan Hollinghurst, reviewed
There’s a certain pattern to an Alan Hollinghurst novel. A young gay man goes to Oxford. He’s middle class and…
Life’s little graces: Small Rain, by Garth Greenwell, reviewed
An unnamed narrator, confined to hospital with a torn aorta, reminisces about his past life in Bulgaria, his love of poetry and the happy domesticity he shared with his partner
Making the fur fly: Mary and the Rabbit Dream, by Noémi Kiss-Deáki
When a poor peasant named Mary Toft claimed to have given birth to 17 rabbits, many in Georgian Britain believed her, including senior members of the medical profession
The perils of Prague: Parasol Against the Axe, by Helen Oyeyemi, reviewed
Three women with a criminal past meet for a weekend hen party – but any hopes of enjoying themselves are soon dashed
Gang warfare in the west of Ireland: Wild Houses, by Colin Barrett, reviewed
The brother of a small-time drugs dealer is kidnapped, and his family and girlfriend set off to find him over the course of one violent, hectic weekend
Refugee lives: The Singularity, by Balsam Karam, reviewed
The stories of two tragic mothers are interwoven in a haunting novel revolving around war, displacement, despair and the loss of children
Tea and treachery: Sheep’s Clothing, by Celia Dale, reviewed
Posing as social services employees, two female ex-cons talk their way into the homes of elderly widows in order to drug them and steal their valuables
Satirical pulp: The Possessed, by Witold Gombrowicz, reviewed
The 1939 Gothic pastiche which the author was at pains to distance himself from is now considered a delightfully devious work of Polish modernism
Bizarre miniatures
With flying narrators and women whose hair drags on the floor, there’s something of Leonora Carrington’s weird visions about Williams’s short stories
Chance encounters
The fates of members of a Jewish family depend on accidental meetings, the boarding of a ship or the ring of a phone in this complex fable woven from 20th-century history
The language of love: Greek Lessons, by Han Kang, reviewed
Lessons in ancient Greek for a young Korean poet who has lost her power of speech develop into a touching relationship with her half-blind teacher
There’s more to corsets than meets the eye
There’s a scene in the recent film Corsage in which Vicky Krieps, playing the melancholy anorexic Empress Elisabeth of Austria, indulges in…
Family friction
In the wake of their father’s death, a brother and sister recall the violent domestic dramas of their childhood
Three Dublin families
Characters ruminate, doors are shut and relationships falter as one person’s thoughts grate on another’s in these subtle, tightly-knit stories
Hiding out in wartime Italy: A Silence Shared, by Lalla Romano
Giulia retreats to her isolated farmhouse to avoid bombardment in Turin, and grows increasingly attached to the partisan couple she shelters
The great deception: The Book of Goose, by Yiyun Li, reviewed
As introductions go, ‘My name is Agnès, but that is not important’ does not have quite the same confidence as…
Pre-Mussolini, most Italians couldn’t understand each other
Towards the end of Dandelions, Thea Lenarduzzi’s imaginative and deeply affecting memoir, the author quotes her grandmother’s remark that there…
Murder most foul: The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O’Farrell, reviewed
There’s a moment near the end of Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue ‘My Last Duchess’ when it becomes clear that the…
