Books & Poetry

The subjects of Lee Rourke’s stories are ground-down office drones, contemporary equivalents of TS Eliot’s who, undone by death, flow over London Bridge in ‘The Waste Land’....

This new Decibel/Penguin collaboration collects 16 non-fiction pieces from unknown or emerging authors who tackle the multifarious theme of immigration. It’s to the writers’ credit that...

The first section of this anthology comprises specially commissioned pieces about memory by writers such as literary critic Frank Kermode, Alzheimer’s expert Steven Rose and psychologist...

The Devil is alive in sixteenth-century Tierkinddorf in Erika Mailman’s elegant debut. As a famine causes widespread hunger and inflames tempers between villagers and families, a Dominican...

One nice aspect of holidays like Easter or Halloween is passing down treasured traditions or instigating new seasonal customs unique to your family. Enter ‘Make, Bake and Celebrate 2008 with...

When rock star Jonathan Heat’s face caves in as a result of excessive plastic surgery he retreats behind a suspiciously lifelike mask. His fans follow suit and entire identikit audiences...

When a young Anglican priest, Reverend John Gore, is sent to a deprived area of his hometown, Newcastle, to ‘plant’ a new church, he is filled with enthusiasm. Partly this is due to his...

The modern music industry is an empty-hearted business, which might explain the moral void at the centre of this dazzling comic novel. In some books this might be a weakness, but in John...

After thirty years spent in the beautiful bowels of the Natural History Museum studying trilobites, Richard Fortey has emerged with a supreme achievement. ‘Dry Store Room No 1’ is not...

Reading to young children can be one of parenthood’s greatest pleasures, but as Julia Donaldson points out in her introduction, ‘it can be perplexing to walk into a bookshop where there...