The May shortlist

‘We write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself around every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver’ Virginia Woolf, 'Orlando'

This month's stack came about thanks to curtailed visits to the bookstore and the enforced closure of the library. Armed with duster and polish I ventured into the deepest recesses of the bookshelves to rediscover those books that have travelled with me from student digs through to first flats and bank-breaking mortgages. The covers may have lost their lustre and the pages have developed an odd musty scent but there's a satisfying feeling in rediscovering a great book.

If lock-down has any upside, the chance to delve deep into the stacks has to be up there. For me, this meant a classic re-read from Jack Kerouac, a second attempt (after 20 years) of finishing Virginia Woolf's Orlando and another go at Pride and Prejudice.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928) - first picked up in 1994
Everyone's life is made up of distinctly different chapters but Orlando’s journey through time (and gender) is extraordinary. Virginia Wool’s fictionalized memoir is a completely unrestrained fantasy with a central conceit, a time-travelling narrator, which allows Woolf to comment on everything from class and social mobility to gender politics. A staggering literary achievement that’s as fresh in the 2020s as it was in the 1920s.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957) - first read and loved in 1997

In the same decade that Walt Disney presented Disneyland's 'Frontierland' and 'Main Street USA' Jack Kerouac gave us route 6, hipsters, beat-up jalopies, apple pie and dusty railway sidings. This paradox is alive and well in the USA today. A Ulysses for the Beat Generation or a rambling road trip? The truth is that 'On the Road' is both. Like Joyce, Kerouac captured generational anxiety that still continues today.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813) - first read and hated in 1995
Fine country houses, assemblies and balls; Austen's rules of civility offer a welcome respite during the Corona lockdown. The plot is laboured in places but kept alive thanks to Mrs Bennett's relentless determinism and Lydia's immature gossipping which would be at home is any reality TV show!

The April shortlist..

The April shortlist....

‘This man was a vortex - all rationality was devoured within him’Dave Eggers, 'The Parade' 5/5

This month's stack includes a cracking dystopian fable from Dave Eggers, the hugely anticipated second novel from Women's Prize for Fiction winner Tayari Jones and the debut novel from Jeanene Cummins that saw Oprah Winfrey's book club under fire.

The shortlist this month came thanks to Oxfordshire Library service's new arrivals, One World publications generous offer of a review copies and the brilliantly curated new Waterstone's store at Victoria. 

The Parade by Dave Eggers

A dystopian fable set in a civil war ravished state where the Authorities commission a massive infrastructure investment to unify the country. Two men and a machine have the construction task. Read in one go for maximum impact! Erudite, provocative and sophisticated 5/5

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

Silver Sparrow is most successful in exploring the theme of bigamy from the perspective of the women most closely involved. Tayari Jones implicitly understands the way histories are shared and uses this technique to shine a light on the complicity that exists in bigamous relationships. A convincingly messy family drama told with real class. 4/5 

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

An epic (if over ambitious) story for our time. Lydia and her son flee Acapulco for the promise of the USA. The tension is nail-biting as 'La Bestia' transports its human cargo to El Norte and the taste of American Dirt. Cummins has been equally praised and pilloried 4/5

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

'My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist', Tayari Jones begins as she means to go on by immediately dropping us in to the heart of the action with real urgency.

Silver Sparrow is the new and much anticipated novel from Tayari Jones who achieved massive success and critical acclaim with her novel American Marriage (2019). Coming off the back of such a landmark novel was never going to be easy but in Silver Sparrow we are back in the type of domestic drama that Tayari Jones articulates so effortlessly.

For her epigraph, Jones choses a poem by Natasha Tretheway A Daughter is a Colony to set us up for a journey about what it is to be somebody's daughter and, furthermore, to be somebody's secret daughter.  

Like American Marriage, the narrative in Silver Sparrow is told through multiple voices but interesting in this new work is the way two half-sisters, Dana and Chaurisse, tell their own stories. In alternating chapters they tell the historic backstory of how their parents got together as if through their very own experience. 

In concurrent stories of family secrets and deception the girls' own perspective on how they came to be in the world mythologises their father and highlights the heroism and self-curation that exists in the way we tell our own stories. Jones understands the way histories are shared and uses this technique to shine a light on the complicty that exists in bigamous relationships. 

The novel is most successful in exploring the theme of bigamy from the perspective of the women most closely involved, in this case the second wife and 'secret' daughter. The parts in Dana's mother's salon, The Pink Fox, are particuarly immersive into the authentic world Jones creates. 

Convincing messy family drama told with real class. 4 star

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones published by Oneworld Publications 368 pages

Thank you to One World for the advanced review copy and for supplying the below extract from an interview with Tayari Jones.

What was your inspiration for Silver Sparrow?

I have always been intrigued by the idea of “half ” sisters. I have two sisters with whom I share a father, but we each have different mothers. They were born before my father met my mother, and they grew up in another state and led completely separate lives from me and from each other. When I was a little girl, with only brothers, I used to fantasize about having two big sisters far away who would love me, dress me up, listen to me talk, et cetera.

The link between my own personal obsession and this fictional story was inspired quite accidentally. While enjoying a night out with a bunch of friends, we were discussing one of the many cases you hear about—a man dies and the other grieving widow shows up with her stair-step kids. One of my girlfriends looked up from her margarita and said, “You know, he had to have some help from the inside. You cannot get local bigamy off the ground unless one of the women is willing to work with you.” It was all I could do to keep from running out of the bar to get home and start writ- ing. The first line, “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist,” jumped into my head, as clearly as though someone had spoken into my ear.

The February Shortlist

The February shortlist....


‘My key works but you won't let me in’
Tayari Jones, 'American Marriage' 5/5


Last month's stack featured award winning fiction from the USA's Tayari Jones, a debut novel from Chinese writer An Yu and a state of the nation tome from Jonathan Coe but first the follow up to The Atocha Station (4 star review here) by Ben Lerner. 

The 10:04 by Ben Lerner
‘Like a poem... neither fiction nor nonfiction, but a flickering between them’. Lerner’s autofiction is addictive but annoyingly slow in places. Mini essays on Whitman and Reagan’s address after the Challenger disaster standout 3/5

Middle England by Jonathan Coe

A well-read romp through life from the 2012 Olympics to the referendum and beyond. Rich observation and wit make for a cosy suburban tonic to McEwan's 'The Cockroach'. Coe fans will meet old characters from 'The Rotters Club' but new fans will find faces they certainly recognise 4/5

American Marriage by Tayari Jones
‘My key works, but you won’t let me in’ A brilliantly crafted story about being the ‘wrong race in the wrong place’. Nuanced, contemporary and relevant 5/5

Braised Pork by An Yu

An Yu’s new novel portrays a young women alienated in Beijing following the unexplained death of her husband. With a debt to Murakami the journey from the city to Tibet is packed with magical realism and late night drinks. Succinct but never curt 5/5

The January shortlist

The January shortlist....

‘But when you boil a story down, you end up with something macabre. All stories end the same way, don’t they?’ Rebecca Makkai

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (2018)

Alternative chapters set in 1980s Chicago and Paris in the mid 2000s chart the AIDS crisis and the impact on one particular family. Epic in scale and forensic in detail yet not fully achieving the emotional depth the subject really deserves 3/5




Until the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (2018)

A brilliant premise that shines a light on the challenges of an ageing society and the shadow of dementia. But the novel is flawed by a tripartite structure that feels written for the stage. Hoped for more from a Japanese bestseller 2/5





Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner (2011)

Ben Lerner’s brand of auto-fiction won’t be for everyone but this is an original novel about a poetry student (and flâneur) floating around Madrid, visiting the Prado, reading Lorca, faking Spanish and contemplating the purpose of life. What’s not to love? 4/5

Under The Net by Iris Murdoch (1954)

Iris Murdoch’s evergreen debut novel is as fresh today as when first published in 1954. Episodic comedy wrapped up in philosophical criticism; the novel explores the unexpected on the streets on London. One to read and read again 4/5

Find Me by Andre Aciman

"We weren’t courting each other but an implicit something seemed to hover between us"

The anticipation around Andre Aciman’s follow up his 1995 novel Call Me By Your Name was palpable from the moment the work was announced. Not only did the film adaptation fuel demand for more from Elio and Oliver but the excitement around the possible film sequel sent fans into a frenzy. With the hard-back book now published the question is whether all the hype is worth it?

In Find Me Aciman tales us back into the cultured and acedemic world he first created in the original novel but the first chapters pick up the story with Elio’s father at the centre. On a train journey he meets and, almost unfeasibly, falls in love with an enigmatic woman on the seat opposite. Admittedly this is literary fiction but there is something unrewarding about a couple meeting in such a way. Its almost lazy.

Later in the novel we catch up with Elio who is working as a classical musician in Paris. He is lost and reflective about the relationships of this past, most notably with Oliver, but nevertheless he meets and falls in love with an older man who he meets at a concert. Again, a leap in imagination is required to accept this relationship for what it is. Given the tenderness and longing Aciman created in Call Me By Your Name we know he can write beguiling prose but in Find Me such passages are few and far between.

It takes until the novel’s final chapter for Elio and Oliver to meet up in scenes which are finally reminiscent of the original novel and the subsequent film. The trouble is that it’s barely worth the wait. Is ‘Find Me’ a bad novel? Perhaps not but it does suffer from over selling by the publishers who are so desperate to give audiences what they want.

Let’s hope the film adaption, which will certainly need a more developed screen play, doesn’t suffer the same fate. 2 star

Read a review of Aciman’s Enigma Variations here.

Find Me by Andre Aciman published by Faber and Faber 256 pages