“How does a government steal a child and then imprison him? How does it keep that a secret? This book is how.”
“I was a man, that much was clear. But, years after I became one, I still wondered what, exactly, that meant.”
“So there I lie on the plateau, under me the central core of fire from which was thrust this grumbling grinding mass of plutonic rock”
“The only difference between a medicine and a poison is the dosage.”
“Twelve. That was the year that I learned that being Black and poor defined me more than being bright and hopeful and ready.”
“She wins you over immediately with an irresistible combination of warmth, honesty, deep understanding of cooking and that ebullient laugh of hers. If anyone can show us how to cook, it is Samin.”
Alice Waters has written about Samin Nosrat and the wonders of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat for Time’s list of their 100 most influential people.
Alice Waters
Time
“These isolated, precarious refuges, at once exposed and welcoming, allow Richards to interrogate ideas of home and escape, of safety and adventure, all in a narrative whose principal pleasure is the time the reader gets to spend in the author’s amiable, erudite, Tiggerish company … Richards is often compared to his friend Rober Macfarlane, but his voice is much closer to that of Geoff Dyer: vivid, self-deprecating, literary and very, very funny.”
Alex Preston
Observer
“Sitting static, miles from the sea, reading Runcie’s account of childbirth during one of my son’s post-lunch naps had me in tears. It was as visceral and as heroic as any Homeric epic. I may not know Runcie, not live on a coast, have nothing fishy in my background, but hearing her story of pain and broken waters made me feel true affinity. I felt, as she describes in relation to the lives of fishermen’s wives, like a woman standing on the shore, looking at the drama unfolding far out at sea. I felt like someone with salt on my face and air in my lungs; a piece of something greater and more magnificent, enacted by women everywhere.”
Nell Frizzell
Caught by the River
“Because this, after all, is what fiction is supposed to do. For the few hours or days or weeks that we are held by a book, it should lead us towards other places and other lives. It should un-centre us, and reorient our imaginations.” A brilliant essay by Malachy Tallack (author of The Valley at the Centre of the World) on how fiction can force us to reconsider ‘remoteness’.
Malachy Tallack
Boundless
A rather brilliant trailer for the rather brilliant Making Evil: The science behind humanity’s dark side.
Narration by Dr. Julia Shaw. Direction/Animation: Jocie Juritz. Colouring: Anjuna Harper & Natasha Pollack. Sound/Music: Thomas Williams.
“This is a very fine novel indeed … Anybody who seeks to understand the world as it is today will find enlightenment here.”
Allan Massie
Scotsman
“I definitely don’t judge people who become passionately involved in a political struggle, even to the point of taking up weapons in the service of that struggle, in the way that I would have before beginning the book.”
John Wray interviewed in the Guardian about his novel, Godsend, and the intriguing – and maybe risky – political ground it treads.
Guardian
An extract from Tracey Thorn’s Another Planet in the Observer.
Observer
‘This is laugh-out-loud, delightful comedic writing. It captures a mood of escapism and nostalgia that I found incredibly reassuring and cheering. More Keggie, please.’
Viv Groskop
Observer
“A significant literary performance … Godsend builds to a shattering, balefully vivid ending.”
Dwight Garner
New York Times