The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
By Arundhati Roy
Had a writer less acclaimed than Arundhati Roy sent this novel as a manuscript to a major agent, it might have been returned with a note: ‘Show more, tell less.’ Of course, no agent writes notes like that to the Roys of the literary world, and of course the advice is rubbish. No amount of showing can save a bad writer, and even an excess of telling can result in an interesting novel by a good writer—as The Ministry of Utmost Happiness proves. Read the review here
Men Without Women
By Murakami Haruki
Murakami's latest collection of stories, which appeared in Japanese in 2014, is unlikely to change anyone’s mind about Murakami. These seven stories are wildly uneven in quality, but, collectively, they feature virtually all the standard Murakami motifs: a disappearing cat, a bar populated by lonely whiskey-drinkers and jazz music, Kafka, Beatles songs. Read the review
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
By D.H. Lawrence
D.H. Lawrence called them joy-hogs. Until I came across the word I hadn’t realised that the condition could be summed up so succinctly; that this societal malaise had already been perfectly described in a novel written long ago by a tuberculosis-ridden Englishman. Read the review here
The Song Rising
By Samantha Shannon
With The Song Rising , the third book in the seven-part urban fantasy The Bone Season series, Samantha Shannon faces that challenge; of balancing smooth continuity with the task of bringing an uninitiated set of readers up to speed—a challenge compounded by the book having resumed the story at the precarious culmination of two prequels filled with a bevy of fictitious details. Read the review here
The Underground Railroad
By Colson Whitehead
In spite of the relentless violence in its pages, Underground Railroad is an inspirational book. Unsurprisingly, it comes with a recommendation by Oprah Winfrey. It could have been more satisfying as a literary work if it had plumbed the depths of motives instead of being motivational. Read the review here
