Our Wives Under the Sea

Another debut novel, this time from Julia Armfield, who I heard speak about Our Wives Under the Sea at a literary event in March 2022. Her reading from the novel and her discussion of the strangeness within its pages captivated me.

I’M A FAN

I’m A Fan is Sheena Patel’s debut novel. On the surface, it’s about online culture and how it impacts young women, and a story about one woman’s relationship experiences on the road to maturity. Deeper than that, it’s about certain kinds of sickness present in Western society: overconsumption, obsession, structural racism, inequality.

Piranesi

Piranesi is Susanna Clarke’s second novel. It is the story of a man of uncertain sanity, lost inside a labyrinthine house, who knows only the bones of the dead and a man he calls the Other. It is a detective story of sorts, with Piranesi simultaneously the mystery to be solved and the person investigating the mystery. It won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021.

Best of Friends

Best of Friends was a Xmas present last year from one of my sisters-in-law. She has good taste in books so, despite having appreciated rather than enjoyed Shamsie’s previous novel, Home Fire, I was curious about her latest outing. My curiosity was rewarded with a beautifully observed exploration of female friendship that I found compelling.

Tokyo Redux

I waited 12 years for David Peace to write the final installment in his Tokyo Trilogy, plus an extra year for it to come out in paperback, and somehow another year after buying it to actually read it. Sometimes anticipation makes me wary. I loved Tokyo Year Zero and Occupied City. Peace’s writing in this trilogy draws from the style of Japanese authors, particularly Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. It’s a dark and unsettling series, meticulously researched so that his fiction feels like it fills the gaps in the historical record with truth.

10 Books of Summer 2023

Cathy at 746books.com announced the annual 20 Books of Summer reading challenge a few days ago and I’ve been giving some thought to what I might read from the 60 books I’m trying to knock off my To Read pile this year.