Hero and villain: The Two Loves of Sophie Strom, by Sam Taylor, reviewed
A Jewish teenager is the victim of a Nazi arson attack in 1933. Alternative scenarios see him joining the French Resistance, and being recruited by the SS
How country living changed the lives of three remarkable women writers
Harriet Baker describes how Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann found new forms of peace and creativity away from the stifling capital
Sinister siblings
A brother and sister are dispatched to a relative’s farm in Colorado, and grow up isolated, unfeeling and even estranged from each other
A child’s eye view: Fight Night, by Miriam Toews, reviewed
Writing from a child’s point of view is a daredevil act that Miriam Toews raises the stakes on in her…
The Belfast Blitz: These Days, by Lucy Caldwell, reviewed
Caught outside at the start of a raid in the Belfast Blitz as the incendiary bombs rain down, Audrey looks…
The stuff of fiction: Elizabeth Bowen exploits her extra-marital affairs
Lara Feigel tells of the passion, pain and sexual exploitation involved in Elizabeth Bowen’s affair with a young married scholar
Where would any writer be without a room of their own?
If you seek out the home of an admired writer, you might find, as with Ernest Hemingway’s house in Havana,…
Toy boy: Machines Like Me, by Ian McEwan, reviewed
What kind of loyalty do we owe a robot we’ve paid for — one who exhibits a convincingly human kind…
A friendship in flux: Normal People, by Sally Rooney, reviewed
‘Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t…
For Julian Barnes, the only story is a love story — and it’s inevitably sad
The story, as it emerges, feels both familiar and inevitable. A bored 19-year-old student, on his university holidays in mid-century…
