Unlike other stories about the apocalypse, this book is tender.
Kitten Clone – Douglas Coupland
By eschewing a standard business profile, the book acts as a site of conflict and translation between a waning medium — print — and an ascending one — the internet.
The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing – Nicholas Rombes
When we are increasingly concerned about documentary technologies’ capacity for truth, it makes sense that the stories we tell might be concerned with the horror of too much truth, or of truth stripped bare.
Embedded in his encounters with himself amid piles of corpses is an ambitious attempt to breach the sublime with the flood of language in this novel.
Half a Lifelong Romance – Eileen Chang
Tragedy is a condition, rather than the failure to act heroically.
The End of Days – Jenny Erpenbeck
Sentences repeat as situations repeat. The sense of relief at yet another opportunity to imagine the future of a life that was lost is cut by the knowledge that loss will win out in the end.
Jaws without the shark.
Unlike many Apartheid novels that stick to one location or group, Black Diamond depicts a South Africa where every group is present and no powerful white man is in sight.
Captives speaks to Sebald’s call to stick within the register of memory, even if memory has been stripped of its supporting features.
Trifonova forces the reader to reassess the opinions and institutions that validate the knowledge we have both of ourselves and of others.