Books & Poetry

It’s 2140 and Anna is a teenage ‘surplus’ – a child born illegally into a world with an immortal population and resources too depleted to accommodate any more people. Anna...

There’s a quiet, stalking charm to rookie American playwright Joshua Furst’s debut novel, a tender, coming-of-age story that plots the cracked pavements of adolescence across the bleak,...

To its devotees, surfing may be as essential as breathing but to many in our damp riverside city, it’s about as exciting a topic. Nevertheless, as the Australian writer Tim Winton well knows,...

Retired linguistics professor Desmond Bates is slowly going deaf. It’s creating frustration and embarrassment – as well as some comedy moments along the way. Author Lodge is also a...

French novelist Mauvignier’s second book is a study of the effects of the 1985 Heysel Stadium disaster – when English football hooligans caused the deaths of 39 people in Brussels...

This collection of short stories is Caroline Oulton’s first work of fiction and follows her non-fiction debut, ‘Dumped!: A Single Mother Shoots from the Hip’, in which she...

As a uniquely communicative critic, teacher, broadcaster and poet, Tom Paulin has made his most flamboyant marks as a champion of oral, regional and vernacular traditions. So his emphasis in this...

Illustrated by Gwen Millward, 'The Bog Baby' explores the poignant pleasure of seeing our own early experiences mirrored in our children’s. Instead of going straight to their...

Did Ian Fleming model James Bond on himself? Was M based on Rear Admiral John Henry Godfrey, Fleming’s boss when he worked in Naval Intelligence? Did he name Blofeld after China scholar John...

Strange though it seems, Les Dennis’s life story is rather fascinating. Partly in that car-crash ‘I can’t believe I’m reading this’ way, and partly for the insight it...