Fiction
Menacing masterpieces: Voices of the Fallen Heroes and Other Stories, by Yukio Mishima
Of the collection’s 14 mesmerising tales, two in particular stand out: a hallucination of nuclear apocalypse and a requiem for Japan’s war dead
Bad air days: Savage Theories, by Pola Oloixarac, reviewed
University students immersed in drug-and-group-sex and online gaming reveal the dark side of Buenos Aires
Rumpelstiltskin retold: Alive in the Merciful Country, by A.L. Kennedy, reviewed
A group of idealistic activists is betrayed by a charismatic newcomer who dazzles with skill and charm – and gets away with murder. Repeatedly
Modern-day ghosts: Haunted Tales, by Adam Macqueen, reviewed
Dark, unsettling stories set mostly in the world of social media and panic rooms are, strikingly, as much about love as death – and how love is stronger
Out of this world: The Suicides, by Antonio di Benedetto, reviewed
Written as Argentina descended into the Dirty War, this eerie fable about a reporter investigating a spate a suicides is thrillingly original
Learning difficulties: The University of Bliss, by Julian Stannard, reviewed
The bureaucrats have taken over, treating both academics and students as administrative nuisances in a searing satire on university life
The curse of distraction: Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber, reviewed
A former college professor prepares to write his long-gestated book on Montaigne, but finds his mind wandering from 1970s nudism to Balzac’s coffee dependency
A post-Brexit entertainment: The Proof of My Innocence, by Jonathan Coe, reviewed
A satire on radical economic libertarianism combines with a cosy Cotswold murder mystery in an ingenious series of stories within stories
A quest for retribution: Fire, by John Boyne, reviewed
Freya, a respected consultant in a burns unit, is on a secret mission to destroy as many young boys’ lives as possible, having been raped by teenagers on holiday in Cornwall at the age of 12
The agonies of adolescence: The Party, by Tessa Hadley, reviewed
In post-war Bristol, two sisters fall in with a group of arrogant young men and soon feel themselves painfully inferior
The spy who came back from retirement: Karla’s Choice, by Nick Harkaway, reviewed
Given a new lease of life by John le Carré’s son, George Smiley gets embroiled in a murky affair involving the Circus’s key Stasi asset and a missing Hungarian literary agent
Doppelgangers galore: The Novices of Lerna, by Angel Bonomini, reviewed
A graduate from Argentina, offered a six-month fellowship in Switzerland, is appalled to meet – and have to live with - 24 versions of himself
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
A geriatric Lord of the Flies: Killing Time, by Alan Bennett, reviewed
Chaos reigns at an old people’s home when Covid strikes, but the more rebellious residents won’t take the situation lying down
An otherworldly London: The Great When, by Alan Moore, reviewed
Is occult knowledge even possible in the age of the internet? If a recondite author obsessed you back in the…
Doctor in trouble: Time of the Child, by Niall Williams, reviewed
In the early 1960s, glimmers of change start to appear in the Irish ‘backwater’ parish of Faha. A smuggled copy…
A scorched Earth: Juice, by Tim Winton, reviewed
Winton’s teenage Australian protagonist is recruited by the sinister Service organisation in its crusade against the billionaires whose profiteering has cooked the planet
The magic of carefully crafted words
A collection of essays, poems and fiction – ‘offcuts’ of a lifetime spent ‘working with a pen’ – marks Alan Garner’s 90th year
Mounting suspicion: The Fate of Mary Rose, by Caroline Blackwood, reviewed
Terror and distrust build in the Anderson family after a six-year-old girl is found murdered in a quiet Kent village
Panning for music gold: The Catchers, by Xan Brooks, reviewed
They were known as song catchers: New York-based chancers with recording equipment packed in the back of the van, heading…
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
A wish-fulfilment romance: Intermezzo, by Sally Rooney, reviewed
Rooney’s fourth novel is another case of compare and contrast, with various pairings of anxious characters struggling through their twenties and thirties in picturesque Dublin
The Crimean War spelt the end of hymns to heroism and glory
Writing from opposite sides, Leo Tolstoy and William Howard Russell exposed the horror of conditions in a quagmire war which seemed to have no meaning
A dark satanic cult: The Third Realm, by Karl Ove Knausgaard, reviewed
Knausgaard’s unsettling novel continues to explore previous themes in the series, including the strange phenomenon of the black metal music scene in socially balanced Norway
Mysteries and misogyny: The Empusium, by Olga Tokarczuk, reviewed
Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann’s masterpiece The Magic Mountain in this ‘health resort horror story’ set in a Silesian guesthouse on the eve of the first world war
