Reviews

The Silver Book by Olivia Laing

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The Silver Book

Celluloid dreams in 1970’s Italy

It’s the tail-end of an Italian summer in 1974, and English art student, Nicholas, is sketching the churches of Venice. He has the looks of a Renaissance angel and an obvious artistic flair, irresistible to the wandering eye of Danilo Donati, celebrated costume and set designer. Donati is in need of an apprentice (and another lover is always welcome). In The Silver Book by Olivia Laing, real-life people and events meld artfully with fiction, as Nicholas is invited into the decadent world of 1970’s Italian cinema and the lives of directors Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Through the prism of the cinematic arts and its legendary characters he bears witness to a turbulent Italian era.

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So Long See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

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So Long See You Tomorrow

The classic you didn’t know you should read

An absolute gem of a book, So Long See You Tomorrow by Willam Maxwell had never been on my radar of books to read until I stumbled upon it in a scantily stocked airport bookstore. It’s a novel of two loosely connected stories: the narrator who looks back at his childhood in Lincoln, Illinois and the devastating loss of his mother and the parallel tragedy of his friend Cletus’ family. Maxwell’s evocative yet sparse writing is nothing short of genius.

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Clear by Carys Davies

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Clear

More than words

Winner of the Ondaatje Prize 2025, and Wales Book of the Year, the captivating Clear by Carys Davies is one of our favourite recent reads, devoured as a one-sitting treat. Set on a far-flung Scottish island in 1843, it tells the tale of John Ferguson, a man of God, sent to evict Ivar, the island’s last remaining tenant farmer. When an accident upon his arrival leaves John incapacitated, Ivar takes him in and tends him. They share no common language, life experience or world view, but in Davies’ touching story of solitude and human connection, a tentative companionship is born.

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Flesh by David Szalay

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Flesh – Winner of the 2025 Booker Prize

Rags to riches

Working-class boy, István, rises from poverty in communist Hungary to join London’s super rich in Flesh by David Szalay. The road there is far from obvious and has little to do with István’s skills or intelligence and everything to do with a series of random coincidences. The prose in Flesh by David Szalay is as sparse as István’s emotional life but as addictive as any of the drugs consumed in London’s nightclubs.

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Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood

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Goodbye to Berlin

Observing the downfall of a nation

‘I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking’, starts Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, an autobiographical collection of loosely connected stories from the author’s time living in Berlin during Hitler’s rise to power. Observing is indeed what he does: the decadent nightlife, the discontent and poverty of the working class, and most chillingly, the sinister beginnings of persecution of Jews. It’s a dark but also comical book with the author playing a supporting role to an eccentric gallery of characters. A quirky and notable classic.

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The Rest of Our Lives Ben Markovits

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The Rest of Our Lives

Getting through unscathed

Shortlisted for The Booker Prize 2025, The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits is a perceptive and beautifully understated novel of midlife reevaluation, relationships and identity. Not your average road trip tale, it tells the story of 55-year-old law professor, Tom, who drops his daughter off at university for the first time and keeps on driving, away from his home, wife Amy, and job. A dozen years previously, Amy had confessed to an affair, leading to the embittered but ever pragmatic Tom vowing to leave her once the kids left home. Now that time has come, Tom reflects on what he once graded a ‘C-minus marriage’ and the decisions he must take.

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Colony by Annika Norlin

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Colony

Disillusioned by her job and city life, and suffering from a serious case of burnout, Emelie decides to ‘check out’ for a while. She packs her tent and sleeping bag, turns off her phone, and seeks refuge in a little clearing deep in the Swedish forest. Once there, Emelie stumbles upon an unusual group of people who have taken ‘escaping it all’ to a whole new level. Curious, she befriends one of them and is drawn into a bizarre, cult-like existence. Colony by Annika Norlin, a bestseller in Sweden, is both a charming and disturbing portrait of misfits; both funny and creepy, and really enjoyable.

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After Leaving Mr Mackenzie by Jean Rhys

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After Leaving Mr Mackenzie

Down and out in Paris and London

A curiously sad autobiographical novel, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie by Jean Rhys is an episode in the itinerant life of Julia Martin, a thirty-something woman leading a precarious existence in Paris and London between the wars. Hers is a life of cheap hotels, booze, and financial dependence on unsuitable men, who invariably let her down. When her ex-lover in Paris cuts off her weekly allowance, the penniless Julia decides to muster her fading magic and head back to London, in hopes of finding love, solvency, and reconnection with her estranged family.

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Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett

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Skin Lane

Repression and desire in bygone London

Legend has it that 1967 was a marvellous year for London’s most swinging residents, whether it be getting stoned in Hyde Park or parking their Minis in the city’s first multi-storey car park. Boho glamour for some, but a decidedly post-war landscape for everyone else, exuding a greyness and reserve left over from the austerity years. In Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett, we’re transported to a furrier’s workshop just off Garlick Hill, EC4. Here we meet the outwardly dull and fastidious Mr F, the man the 1960’s forgot, whose hidden desires are set to ignite a nightmare of rage and shame.

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The Place of Tides by James Rebanks

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The Place of Tides

The perfect antidote

Both memoir and bibliotherapy for troubled minds, The Place of Tides by James Rebanks takes a step out of time and place, transporting us to a remote Norwegian island just south of the Arctic Circle. Here, burnt out and disillusioned with life, Rebanks spends a restorative ‘eiderdown season’ with a marvellous woman named Anna. Upholding an ancient island tradition, Anna nurtures wild eider ducks as they nest and lay eggs, collecting the precious down they leave behind to make duvets. The days are still, the work simple and repetitive, a balm for Rebanks’ spirits as he uncovers the story of Anna’s long island life and learns some valuable lessons.

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