Year of the Rat: Undercover in the British Far Right by Harry Shukman won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2025. A former journalist and researcher for the campaigning group HOPE not hate, Shukman went undercover as “Chris” for a year, infiltrating nine extreme far-right groups, starting with lesser-known networks like the Basketweavers whose lonely members meet in dingy pubs to discuss conspiracy theories. Shukman used his connections from those groups to infiltrate others, including canvassing with Britain First and attending neo-Nazi conferences and eugenicist circles. Shukman paints portraits of the activists, their motivations and the pathetic power struggles within the mostly disorganised groups which provide some unexpected light relief amidst the alarming political and social implications of the extreme ideologies they promote. The stress of working undercover clearly took its toll on Shukman but the resulting book he has produced is tense, bold and brave.
Tag Archives: Literary Fiction
Books I Read in April 2026
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My Most Anticipated Books of 2026
As always, I have been keeping an eye on new books coming soon in 2026, despite already having so many other books on my TBR list…
In fiction, Departure(s) by Julian Barnes is said to be the Booker Prize-winning author’s final novel about memory and illness and will be published this month. A much talked-about debut novel due in February is Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash about a dysfunctional family. Hooked by Asako Yuzuki and translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton follows the phenomenal success of Butter with similar themes of food and loneliness in contemporary Japan and is due in March.
The Booker Prize 2025 Longlist
The longlist for this year’s Booker Prize was announced today. The 13 books are:
Love Forms by Claire Adam
The South by Tash Aw
Universality by Natasha Brown
One Boat by Jonathan Buckley
Flashlight by Susan Choi
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Audition by Katie Kitamura
The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
Endling by Maria Reva
Flesh by David Szalay
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga
The Booker Prize 2025: Predictions, Preferences and Possibilities
It’s that time of year again… I haven’t had much success with my Booker Prize predictions in the last couple of years, but it’s still fun to consider which books might appear on the longlist, due to be announced this Tuesday. Eligible novels must have been published in the UK between 1st October 2024 and 30th September 2025.
I would of course like to see Ripeness by Sarah Moss on the longlist alongside Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell which is my stand-out debut novel of the year so far. Confessions by Catherine Airey could also be in with a chance. Continue reading
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Books I Read in March 2025
Bookish by Lucy Mangan does what every great bibliomemoir should do: it reminded me of lots of books I would like to reread, helped me discover lots of books I now want to read and gave me a new appreciation of books I will probably never read. While Mangan’s previous bibliomemoir Bookworm covered the nostalgia of childhood reading, Bookish is a sequel about reading habits in adulthood and how different genres can be appreciated at particular stages or challenges in life from adolescence to middle age. Unsurprisingly, Mangan’s taste is eclectic and she writes persuasively about what she enjoys, such as devouring Lee Child novels during maternity leave. Reading Bookish made me feel very seen – in particular, Mangan’s holidays browsing bookshops in Hay-on-Wye and north Norfolk with her partner Christopher in tow sound remarkably like mine. Many thanks to Random House UK, Vintage for sending me a review copy via NetGalley. Continue reading
Books I Read in February 2025
Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld is a collection of 12 short stories by the author of American Wife, Rodham and Romantic Comedy. White Women LOL is a stand-out satire about cancel culture, while Lost But Not Forgotten, the last story in the collection, sees the main character from Sittenfeld’s debut novel Prep, preparing to attend her 30 year boarding school reunion. The Richest Babysitter in the World is a memorable tale about a woman who works for a couple who later become tech billionaires. Sittenfeld tends to focus on the domestic preoccupations of middle-aged women from the Midwest, so while Show Don’t Tell isn’t particularly experimental or diverse in terms of subject matter or themes, Sittenfeld deploys her sharp wit and observation just as effectively in short form as she does in her novels, resulting in a satisfying and consistent collection of stories. Many thanks to Random House UK for sending me a review copy via NetGalley. Continue reading
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My Most Anticipated Books of 2025
Despite my ever-growing TBR list, I’m always looking ahead at new books due to be published soon, even if I won’t necessarily get round to reading them all this year. All publication dates where known apply to the UK.
The fiction highlight this spring has got to be Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which is the author’s first novel in ten years since Americanah. Ripeness by Sarah Moss will be published in May and is set in 1960s Italy and 2020s Ireland. Havoc by Rebecca Wait will be out in July and is set in a girls boarding school in the 1980s, and I hope it’s as psychologically astute as I’m Sorry You Feel That Way and Our Fathers.
Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld is a collection of short stories by the author of Romantic Comedy due in February. I have heard lots of good things about Confessions by Catherine Airey which is a debut novel published this month about three generations of women between Ireland and New York. Continue reading
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My Books of the Year 2024
It’s that time of year again… here are my favourite books I read in 2024.
I usually read more non-fiction these days and 2024 was an excellent year for memoirs. My Family: The Memoir by David Baddiel is a pretty much perfect blend of comedy and empathy about his dysfunctional parents. Knife by Salman Rushdie is a frank account of the near-fatal attack the author suffered in 2022 at a literary event and My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss is about the author’s eating disorder which saw her relapse during the pandemic.
From 2022, Original Sins by Matt Rowland Hill is an extremely candid memoir about his evangelical Baptist upbringing in south Wales and substance abuse as an adult. Ruskin Park by Rory Cellan Jones is a very affecting book about how his parents met in the 1950s while working at the BBC and Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart is an astutely observed political memoir about the nine years he spent as an MP and government minister.
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Books I Read in July 2024
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray was shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year and is even more impressive than his second novel Skippy Dies which I read last year. It is a portrait of the Barnes family who live in a small Irish town and have fallen on hard times following the financial crash in 2008. Dickie Barnes runs a car dealership which he inherited from his father Maurice. His marriage to town beauty Imelda is also in trouble. Their teenage daughter Cass is aiming to go to Trinity College Dublin and their 12-year-old son PJ is obsessed with video games.
As demonstrated in ‘Skippy Dies’, Murray is excellent at writing accurate teenage dialogue, although I was a bit less convinced by the absence of punctuation in Imelda’s section, which supposedly reflects her desperation and how her mind works. ‘The Bee Sting’ is less comic than ‘Skippy Dies’ and much more about anxiety regarding both the past and the future. The lengthy flashbacks eventually reveal that it is the events, decisions and near misses in Dickie and Imelda’s past which have really shaped the family’s current circumstances, leading to an unsettling but fitting conclusion. ‘The Bee Sting’ is an ambitious novel with satisfying character development.
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The Booker Prize 2024 Longlist
The Booker Prize longlist was announced on Tuesday. The 13 titles are:
Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
James by Percival Everett
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
My Friends by Hisham Matar
This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud
Held by Anne Michaels
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
Playground by Richard Powers
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood Continue reading
The Booker Prize 2024: Predictions, Preferences and Possibilities
The longlist for this year’s Booker Prize is due to be announced on Tuesday 30th July. I’ve had mixed results over the last decade or so in my attempts to predict some likely contenders alongside my personal preferences and other possibilities, but it’s always fun to guess anyway.
Irish authors often dominate the shortlists as they did last year when ‘Prophet Song’ by Paul Lynch won the Prize. I am keen to read Long Island by Colm Tóibín which is a sequel to Brooklyn. Ghost Mountain by Rónán Hession is a fable about a mountain that suddenly appears and sounds rather different from his first two novels Leonard and Hungry Paul and Panenka. I don’t know much about Intermezzo by Sally Rooney which will be published in September – books eligible for this year’s Prize must have been published in the UK between 1st October 2023 and 30th September 2024 – but it’s hard to imagine Rooney moving too far away from the themes of her previous novels including Normal People which was longlisted in 2018. Continue reading
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Books I Read in January 2024
Wellness by Nathan Hill is set in the 1990s when Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students amid a vibrant art scene in Chicago. The novel follows the ups and downs of their relationship over the next 20 years through to middle age when they are married with a young son. Jack is a photographer while Elizabeth works at a wellness lab specialising in using placebos to treat disorders. The character development is exceptionally detailed, although some of the deep dives about psychology and algorithms could have been a little more concise. Still, unlike most doorstopper novels which deal with complex social issues – ‘Wellness’ is a hefty 600+ pages – it doesn’t take itself too seriously thanks to Hill’s sharp eye for humour and cynicism. I enjoyed Hill’s debut The Nix a lot and his second novel doesn’t disappoint. Many thanks to Pan Macmillan for sending me a review copy via NetGalley. Continue reading
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My Most Anticipated Books of 2024
My list of books to read continues to expand and there are lots to look forward to in 2024. All publication dates where known apply to the United Kingdom only.
Wellness by Nathan Hill is published in January. I really enjoyed Hill’s debut novel The Nix and his second book is another 600+page doorstopper about a couple who meet in Chicago in the 1990s. Another second novel out in January is Come and Get It by Kiley Reid set on a university campus in the United States. Continue reading
My Books of the Year 2023
One of the stand-out novels I read in 2023 was Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld which is a fun and refreshingly original take on the genre. I also really enjoyed The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith which is the seventh outing for Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott’s detective agency as they infiltrate a sinister cult in Norfolk. Continue reading
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Books I Read in November 2023
Nine Pints by Rose George is a non-fiction about “the mysterious, miraculous world of blood”. The title refers to the approximate amount of blood we have in our bodies, and George explores various blood-related topics across nine chapters covering disease, cultural attitudes and medical breakthroughs. George‘s global tour includes HIV education in South Africa, the taboo of menstruation in Nepal, the infected blood scandal in the UK and a controversial plasma clinic in Canada. There are also more positive stories about pioneers such as Oxford scientist Dame Janet Vaughan who set up the world’s first mass blood donation system during the Second World War and Arunchalam Muruganantham who helped develop low-cost sanitary products in India. George is an engaging popular science author whose thorough essays combine historical research and field reporting and are crammed with facts. It’s probably not the ideal book for anyone who is particularly squeamish, but at least there aren’t any illustrations. Continue reading
Books I Read in September 2023
The Fraud by Zadie Smith weaves together three storylines based on true events in the 19th century. A Cockney butcher arrives in London from Australia claiming to be Sir Roger Tichborne, the heir to a baronetcy and previously thought to have been lost at sea. His sensational fraud trial in London captures everyone’s attention, including Eliza Touchet, the cousin-by-marriage of prolific novelist William Ainsworth who outsold Charles Dickens in his day, and Andrew Bogle, a former Jamaican slave who believes the claimant really is Tichborne despite a considerable amount of evidence that he definitely isn’t. ‘The Fraud’ is Smith’s long-awaited first piece of long-form historical fiction, but ultimately I prefer her contemporary novels. It is an original take on a forgotten case with some humorous dialogue and parallels with more recent events in the US. However, I think it was held back by its overly complex structure scattered across very short chapters, with the three strands never quite hanging together in a coherent or satisfying way (much like my issue with To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara). Many thanks to Penguin UK, Hamish Hamilton for sending me a review copy via NetGalley. Continue reading
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Books I Read in July 2023
Stasiland by Anna Funder won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2004 (now known as the Baillie Gifford Prize) and chronicles the lives of several people who lived in the German Democratic Republic, also known as East Germany, during the Cold War. Funder, an Australian journalist, was working in television in the mid-1990s when she put an ad in a newspaper seeking stories from those who experienced life under the Stasi regime. They include Miriam who was caught trying to cross the Berlin Wall as a teenager, Julia whose Italian boyfriend raised suspicion among Stasi officers, and Frau Paul whose baby son was taken to a west Berlin hospital on the night the Wall was constructed leaving her stuck on the other side after refusing to inform for the Stasi. Funder also spoke to former Stasi officers, some of whom remained sympathetic to the regime. The number of Stasi officers and informants – estimated to be as high as 1 in 6.5 of the population – is staggering and their methods of surveillance, control and manipulation even more so. Given Funder collected these stories not long after the Wall fell, ‘Stasiland’ is an important collection of eyewitness accounts told by those who had recently lived through such a turbulent time. Continue reading
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The Booker Prize 2023 Longlist
The Booker Prize longlist was announced on Tuesday. The 13 titles are:
A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney
This Other Eden by Paul Harding
Pearl by Siân Hughes
All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
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The Booker Prize 2023: Predictions, Possibilities and Preferences
In my Booker Prize blog post last year, I noted that my longlist predictions lists in 2020 and 2021 included the eventual winners in those years: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart and The Promise by Damon Galgut. I posed the question of whether I could make it three years in a row. The answer was a resounding no, but I think it’s fair to say that last year’s winner The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka didn’t feature in too many other predictions lists either, so I guess that was a small consolation.
As ever, my annual list of predictions consists of what I think could be some strong possibilities alongside my own personal preferences, based on a few novels I have read and others I have heard about. Novels published in the UK between 1 October 2022 and 30 September 2023 will be eligible. It’s impossible to know for sure which novels have been submitted for consideration, although the latest efforts by previous winners are usually considered automatically. Continue reading
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Books I Read in May 2023
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my most anticipated books of 2023. Sally is a comedy writer for the late-night sketch show The Night Owls – a fictionalised version of Saturday Night Live – where she meets Noah Brewster, a pop star since the early 2000s who is appearing as a guest host. Expecting to work with a vapid and self-absorbed celebrity, Sally is pleasantly surprised when they hit it off while writing sketches. Her awkward lack of self-confidence prevents romantic developments, until they reconnect through email correspondence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The atmosphere of the male-dominated writers’ room is convincingly depicted and Sally is a refreshingly well-written female lead character who isn’t defined by her feelings about having children. Sittenfeld uses some of the traditional tropes of the romantic comedy genre, particularly around conflict, while quietly reversing others. Rather than being in competition with a rival, the only real obstacle is Sally’s low self-esteem. This is easily one of the most enjoyable books I have read this year. Continue reading
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