Drawing on Victor Hugo’s cryptic diary entries and letters from his wife, Catherine Axelrad’s Célina builds a snapshot of a teenage chambermaid in the Hugo household during the author’s exile in Guernsey, who was apparently prey to the great man’s gargantuan sexual appetites. With a mix of mischief, naivety, pragmatism and curiosity, Célina’s account of...
Susan Muaddi Darraj began her debut novel Behind You Is the Sea six years ago, as a series of interlinked portraits of daily life among the Palestinian diaspora in Baltimore. The stories that make up the novel are centred on three Palestinian American families who are rooted in a common identity, but whose concerns are...
I grew up on the island of Guernsey, in a house perched high on a cliff, and much as I’ve always loved the sea, I know to be afraid of it. I’ve watched how quickly a calm, clear morning can be swallowed by a storm, how a rogue wave or rip tide will catch you...
My debut novel, The Grief Doctor, follows Arthur Mason, a man consumed by the recent loss of his wife Julia. In the pit of his desperation, a lifeline descends in the form of Dr Elizabeth Codelle, a visionary psychiatrist with a private practice off the North Wales coast. Seeking an end to his turmoil, Arthur...
Tim Marshall is a leading authority on geopolitics whose previous books include Prisoners of Geography and The Power of Geography. The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World (Elliott & Thompson), a Sunday Times bestseller and Book of the Year, is shortlisted in the Non-Fiction category of the 2024...
“My marriage ended because I was cruel. Or because I ate in bed. Or because he liked electronic music and difficult films about men in nature. Or because I did not. Or because I was anxious, and this made me controlling. Or because red wine makes me critical. Or because hunger, stress, and white wine...
Remember when the police used to be the good guys? From virtuous sheriffs in Westerns willing to lay down their life in a last-gasp shoot-out, to honest and methodical detectives such as Inspector French in Freeman Wills Crofts’ classic series of books, these were the people we depended on to keep us safe. But the...
Amongst the many novelties of the 1871 Crystal Palace cat show were two Siamese cats, which ‘are said to be the first of the kind ever brought to this country’. Owned by a Mr Maxwell, about whom little is known, the animals were described by one journalist as ‘singular and elegant, in their smooth skins...
Still City, Oksana Maksymchuk’s debut poetry collection in English, reflects life in the wake of extreme and unpredictable violence. Drawing on sources including social media, news coverage, witness accounts, recorded oral histories, photographs, drone video footage, intercepted communication and official documents, Maksymchuk tells the shared experience of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “By calling it...
On 30 April 2024, the Booksellers’ Association announced Fleur Sinclair of Sevenoaks Bookshop as its new president, having served since 2020 as one of two vice-presidents. When we heard the news, we wanted to ask Fleur for an insight in how she keeps and curates her own books… Tell us about the bookshelves in your...
Writing fiction – especially during the early, inspiration-seeking moments – requires establishing your personal preconditions for creativity, and preparing to inhabit different states of being. Each element of the writing process has its own energy and it helps to recognise what stage you are at, and what you need to draw inspiration from to move...
Not many of my days are the same but the range they cycle through remains consistently varied. Let’s take a random sample, say, yesterday, and see what happened in 24 hours of my writing life… Weather: 15 degrees and torrential rain. Bondi Beach, Edge of the World. It hasn’t stopped raining for four days, the sort of water-sheets you only get...
