Blind man’s garden – or a blind alley?
By Charlotte Grimshaw in Books
Issue 3810 9th May 2013
Nadeem Aslam’s novel about war-torn Afghanistan gets stranded in self-conscious “exquisiteness”.
Book review
Charting a fresh course
By Louise O'Brien in Books
Issue 3810 9th May 2013
Louise O'Brien reviews Two Girls in a Boat, a collection of short stories by Emma Martin.
A secret endeavour
Subscriber contentBy Nicholas Reid in Books
Issue 3810 9th May 2013
Graeme Lay’s James Cook novel based on a fictional personal journal makes for a good, brisk read.
The great game
By Jon Stephenson in Books
Issue 3810 9th May 2013
The mistakes of the British in 19th-century Afghanistan leap from the pages of William Dalrymple’s book and foreshadow the errors of successive occupiers.
Leading by example
By Diane Brown in Books
Issue 3810 9th May 2013
Stephanie Johnson’s novel about a creative writing class is itself a lesson in how it’s done.
Catching the chime in it
By Guy Somerset in Books
Issue 3809 2nd May 2013
F Scott Fitzgerald felt he eventually understood ‘the exquisite inner mechanics’ of Keats’s Grecian Urn; Sarah Churchwell feels the same way about The Great Gatsby.
Runaway dad
Subscriber contentBy John McCrystal in Books
Issue 3809 2nd May 2013
This is a brave subject for a woman to tackle from a male first-person perspective, writes reviewer John McCrystal.
The chill of unfinished business
Subscriber contentBy Kapka Kassabova in Books
Issue 3809 2nd May 2013
Legacies of love and betrayal are unlocked in Aminatta Forna’s Croatian-set novel.
Past imperfect
Subscriber contentBy Louise O'Brien in Books
Issue 3809 2nd May 2013
There are skeletons aplenty in this novel propelled by genealogy.
'There's someone missing'
Subscriber contentBy Guy Somerset in Books
Issue 3808 24th Apr 2013
Julian Barnes contemplates grief – and ballooning and photography along the way.