International fiction
Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk & Heather Cleary (trans.)
Marina Yuszczuk’s new novel, the pensive and erotic Thirst, makes one thing clear: the vampire will always hold an important place in our cultural consciousness. Not just a classic monster, the vampire is a versatile and potent symbol capable…
Gliff by Ali Smith
Ali Smith writes the fiction that we need. I last read her work in 2011, and though I regret not returning to her for so long, it has been quite amazing to experience the transformation between these novels. While her…
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami & Philip Gabriel (trans.)
The conceit of this novel is that there exists a fantastical City complete with bridge, clocktower with a handless clock, unicorny beasts and an impermeable wall that seals it off from reality. Somehow, however, the hesitant, querulous Haruki Murakami first-person…
The Trunk by Kim Ryeo-ryeong & The Ko-lab (trans.)
Inji is a Field Wife working for the New Marriage department of Wedding & Life, a matchmaking agency wherein wealthy clients can hire a wife or husband for a short-term contract. Once the contract is finished, you both walk away…
She's Always Hungry
Sickos rejoice! This is the first collection of short stories from the cult favourite author of Boy Parts and Penance. Written in the years since 2018, the subjects and styles are varied, but many of the stories share a…
Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio
In Graveyard Shift, M.L. Rio, author of If We Were Villains, crafts an atmospheric novella that blends modern Gothic horror with a dark academic setting. The story revolves around an ancient college cemetery, where five mismatched individuals cross…
The Great When: A Long London Novel by Alan Moore
1949: in a still-Blitzed and shell-shocked London, the hapless and gormless Dennis Knuckleyard works as a bookseller (as a bookseller with subpar levels of hap and gorm myself, I can sympathise). A straightforward stroll into Soho to buy up some…
The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk & Antonia Lloyd-Jones (trans.)
The Empusium is the newest novel by Nobel Prize-winning writer Olga Tokarczuk. The title is a neologism combining Empusa, a shape-shifting woman from Greek myth, and ‘symposium’, where men gather to drink and revel in lively discussion, occasions which are…
Intermezzo (special edition hardback) by Sally Rooney
There are more variations in a game of chess than there are atoms in the observable universe. In her latest novel, Intermezzo, Sally Rooney has written a highly original permutation of the love story.
The book centres on two…
Playground by Richard Powers
I am not a beach person. Traumatised by a near-drowning as a child, given the choice, I will head for hills over coast every single time. So this book, most of which is set either beneath the waves or on…
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