The author on how the celebration of solitude in her Women’s prize-winning new novel, Piranesi, grew from her experience of a long illness Susanna Clarke’s subject is magic and her own story is a magical one too. Seventeen years after her bestselling, …
Matrix by Lauren Groff review – a brilliant nun’s tale
Visionary leader, queer lover, 12th-century writer … the life of Marie de France is triumphantly reimagined in an assertively modern novel about female ambition and creativityThe author of Fates and Furies has been much acclaimed, especially in the US,…
From Boudicca to modern Britain: the dream of island utopias, ruled by women
Once the British Isles were seen as a stronghold of female leadership. Patriarchal culture pushed these stories to the geographical margins – yet they live on, a force too potent to ignoreThroughout history, the idea of islands where women rule has bee…
The Man Who Died Twice By Richard Osman review – relax and enjoy
The Thursday Murder Club foursome return in a comic crime sequel alert to the realities of old ageThe success of Richard Osman’s first comic crime novel, The Thursday Murder Club, came as no surprise. He is a much-loved TV personality whose company is …
The best recent thrillers – review roundup
This month’s crop of crime and suspense fiction includes an engaging tale of government secrets by Robert Peston and a nail-biting new series from Val McDermidZaffre, £14.99, pp400 Continue reading…
Constructed Worlds, Group Beliefs and Narrative Consciousness
Three Simple Policy Heuristics – “The most important thing to understand is this: Harm ripples, kindness ripples. People you hurt go on to hurt other people. People who are treated with kindness become better people, or more prosperous people, and go o…
Gravity in Multiply Connected Space
Author Greg Egan has a new book out, and wrote up an explainer behind the math: “A space that is connected (in the sense that there is always a path between any two points), but not simply connected, is known as a multiply connected space, because ther…
“places where Real Life unfolded”
Anthony Veasna So explored what it was like to grow up as a queer son of Khmer refugees in Stockton, California. Last year he died suddenly at the age of 28, just after correcting the proofs of his debut story collection, Afterparties. Four of the nine…
Tenderness by Alison MacLeod review – polite society’s rude awakening
Lady Chatterley’s Lover and US politics collide in an enjoyable widescreen novel comprising real and fictional characters over half a centuryAlison MacLeod’s arresting new novel begins with the ostensible serendipity of two historic triumphs: within th…
Mrs March by Virginia Feito review – super woman’s world unravels
An author’s wife sinks into paranoid fantasy after a social slight in an accomplished comedy-horror too arch for its own goodIf you were to generalise about psychological thrillers – a genre label now applied to pretty much any novel in which someone h…