Richard Cobb: A Classical Education

Alba de Cespedes: Forbidden Notebook

Megan Nolan: Ordinary Human Failings

Siri Hustvedt : The Summer Without Men

Mia and Boris have been married for thirty years.  When he says he wants to have a ‘pause’ she has a complete mental collapse and lands in hospital.

He did not say, ‘I don’t ever want to see you again’ or ‘It’s over’, but after thirty years of marriage ‘pause’ was enough to turn me into a lunatic whose thoughts burst, ricocheted and careened into on another…

Heidi Sopinka : Utopia

Heidi Sopinka’s second novel is set in the LA art world of 1978. This is the time of Andy Warhol and Valerie Solanas (who tried to kill him). It begins at a party, with a young woman in a room breast feeding her seven-week-old baby. Not just any young woman, but Romy, performance artist and part of a glamourous power couple with Billy, some years older, and recipient of Guggenheim awards and shows in Europe. Romy is ripped apart by anger and jealousy. She feels that Billy will always be more famous and respected than she is because she is a female. And this is the theme of this story; the battle between the sexes.

Bonnie Garmus: Lessons In Chemistry

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Sheila,” one of the women was saying, “but didn’t she say cast-iron requires zero-point-one-one calories of heat to raise the temperature of a single gram of atomic mass by one degree Celsius?”

“That’s right, Elaine,” the other said. “That’s why I’m buying a new skillet.”

Mary Karr: The Liars’ Club

Mothers, Fathers, and Others : Siri Hustvedt

In her latest book of essays Siri Hustvedt ranges far. She speaks of her family and her early life. She examines the power of art and of reading. She looks back at favourite books like Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights, she thinks about what we might be drawn to read during a pandemic, she plays around with the words of a famous story-teller, Scheherazade, and she examines the life of a prolific artist and journal writer, Louise Bourgeois. She also, as so often with her, tries to tease apart the debate about the relative merits of male and female art/writing.

Deborah Levy : Hot Milk

An epigraph from Hélène Cixous’ The Laugh of the Medusa sets the tone for this deeply enjoyable book.

It’s up to you to break the old circuits.

Actress-Anne Enright

Anne Enright’s seventh novel Actress is a richly absorbing treat. Her story begins in Dublin, in the Bohemian household of Katherine O’Dell and her daughter Norah. Katherine is the stunningly beautiful actress of the title, as seen by the constantly scrutinising eye of her daughter. In the course of this intricately woven tale, we see Norah grow up and Katherine slowly descend from the peak of public adoration to fall into a pit of mental illness and public shame. But when she was in her prime none could touch her.