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THE IN-BETWEEN CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS 384pp. Atlantic. Paperback, 9.99 [pounds sterling]. At the heart of Christos Tsiolkas's ninth novel, The In-Between, is a big midlife question: after fifty, suddenly single, how [...]

BEFORE TOM BROWN The origins of the school story ROBERT J. KIRKPATRICK 246pp. Lutterworth Press. 67.50 [pounds sterling]. Most modern reference guides, including Robert J. Kirkpatrick's own Encyclopedia of Boys' [...]

OLAV AUDUNSSON I: Vows (376pp, 2020) II: Providence (280pp, 2021) III: Crossroads (216pp, 2022) IV: Winter (352pp, 2023) SIGRID UNDSET Translated by Tiina Nunnally University of Minnesota Press. Paperback, 14.99 [...]

THE GALLOPERS JON RANSOM 208pp. Muswell Press. 14.99 [pounds sterling]. IT IS AN INTRIGUING QUESTION, how we 'voice' a narrative when reading in our heads. If you could hear my [...]

RESERVOIR LIVI MICHAEL 160pp. Salt. Paperback, 10.99 [pounds sterling]. OWLISH DOROTHY TSE Translated by Natascha Bruce 224pp. Fitzcarraldo Editions. Paperback, 13.99 [pounds sterling]. VEHICLE JEN CALLEJA 356pp. Prototype. Paperback, 12 [...]

SOMEDAY, MAYBE ONYI NWABINELI 352pp. Magpie. 16.99 [pounds sterling]. THERE'S BEEN A LITTLE INCIDENT ALICE RYAN 416pp. Apollo. 18.99 [pounds sterling]. THE GHOST VARIATIONS DAMIAN LANIGAN 280pp. Weatherglass. Paperback, 11.99 [...]

In my review of Alan Rickman's diaries (October 21), I raised a few questions about Alan Taylor's editorial choices. His letter (November 4) has reinforced my doubts. In removing more [...]

MADLY, DEEPLY The Alan Rickman diaries ALAN RICKMAN Edited by Alan Taylor 496pp. Canongate. 25 [pounds sterling]. Referencing Anthony Minghella's oddly profound comedy of bereavement Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), the [...]

ACTING CLASS NICK DRNASO 267pp. Granta. 20 [pounds sterling]. NICK DRNASO is a master of non-flamboyance. Suburban life, in its most hellishly restrictive form, is the emotional and artistic centre [...]

TO THE FRIEND WHO DID NOT SAVE MY LIFE HERVE GUIBERT Translated by Linda Coverdale 288pp. Serpent's Tail. Paperback, 10.99 [pounds sterling]. TO WRITE AS IF ALREADY DEAD KATE ZAMBRENO [...]

CHILEAN POET ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA Translated by Megan McDowell 432pp. Granta. 16.99 [pounds sterling]. ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA wrote two books of poems in his twenties. Since turning thirty, he has written five [...]

THE ANGELS OF L19 JONATHAN WALKER 240pp. Weatherglass. Paperback, 10.99 [pounds sterling]. 'There are always fourteen to twenty beans: seven to ten mouthfuls, two beans at a time. Mix each [...]

VARYING DEGREES OF SUCCESS A memoir, 1992-2020 DAVID LODGE 224pp. Harvill Seeker. 25 [pounds sterling]. David Lodge is a master of many forms: more than a dozen novels, often experimental [...]

WHEN NOVELS WERE BOOKS JORDAN ALEXANDER STEIN 272pp. Harvard University Press. 31.95[pounds sterling] (US $39.95). THE SECRET LIFE OF BOOKS Why they mean more than words TOM MOLE 256pp. Elliott [...]

Mark Austin (Letters, May 21) is no doubt right to observe that Goethe is 'famous but curiously unknown to English-speaking readers', although that 'curiously' is itself curious, given that Austin [...]

THE MIDLIFE MIND Literature and the art of ageing BEN HUTCHINSON 280pp. Reaktion. 20 [pounds sterling]. 'Hold your chin up and your stomach in; there is life on the other [...]

DIARY OF A FILM NIVEN GOVINDEN 224pp. Dialogue. 14.99 [pounds sterling]. Given the emotional and creative commitment entailed, how does an artist finish one project and start another? The answer [...]

CATHEDRAL BEN HOPKINS 624pp. Europa. 16.99 [pounds sterling]. A fat 600 pages, set across forty years of the thirteenth century, Cathedral brings together religion, politics, trade and family in a [...]

In his valedictory lecture as Oxford's Professor of Poetry last month, Simon Armitage addressed the issue of poetry and education. He wondered why Oxford, almost alone in the world, held [...]

Robert Buckeye is not impressed (Letters, August 7) with the comparison I make between Virginie Despentes and Kathy Acker at the end of my review of Vernon Subutex 3 (July [...]

VERNON SUBUTEX 3 VIRGINIE DESPENTES Translated by Frank Wynne 368pp. MacLehose. Paperback, 11.99 [pounds sterling]. A CHAIN-SMOKING KID IN TRAINERS paces Up and down the train platform at Bordeaux, glaring [...]

BOX HILL ADAM MARS-JONES 160pp. Fitzcarraldo. Paperback, 10.99 [pounds sterling]. Long ago, in an edition of the BBC's Late Review, Adam Mars-Jones and Germaine Greer faced off over one of [...]

THE MADNESS OF KNOWLEDGE On wisdom, ignorance and fantasies of knowing STEVEN CONNOR 368pp. Reaktion. 25 [pounds sterling] (US $35). STEVEN CONNOR IS a professor of English at the University [...]

Andre Aciman FIND ME 272 pp. Faber. 14.99 [pounds sterling]. 978 0 57135 682 9 Call Me By Your Name, Merchant Ivory's 2017 adaptation of Andre Aciman's debut novel from [...]

MARY BEARD John Williams's novel Stoner became a must-read rediscovery of 2013. I'm afraid I resisted. But I am intending to sit down this summer with the last of his [...]

Matthew Lopez THE INHERITANCE Young Vic, until May 19 The Inheritance, by the American playwright Matthew Lopez, is an exploration of twenty-first-century gay identity by means of an updated version [...]

Alan Hollinghurst THE SPARSHOLT AFFAIR 464pp. Picador. 20 [pounds sterling]. 978 1 4472 0821 1 The Sparsholt Affair begins with a spectacular study in shadows and uncertainty. The setting is [...]

Sir,--Years ago, I reviewed Derek Jarman's final book of diaries for the TLS (August 18, 2000). In a fairly decent review of a good and moving book I noted that [...]

Bret Easton Ellis WHITE 261pp. Picador. 16.99 [pounds sterling]. 978 1 5290 1239 2 US: Knopf. $25.95. 978 0 525 65630 2 Between 1985 and 1998, Bret Easton Ellis wrote [...]

Peter Shillingsburg TEXTUALITY AND KNOWLEDGE Essays 222pp. Pennsylvania State University Press. Paperback, 31.95[pounds sterling] (US $44.95). 978 0 271 08107 6 Textual criticism has an image problem. 'By those who [...]

Laurent Binet THE 7TH FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE Translated by Sam Taylor 390pp. Harvill Secker. 16.99 [pounds sterling]. 978 1 91 070158 4 Among the many tributes to Anthony Burgess in [...]

Tibor Fischer HOW TO RULE THE WORLD 256pp. Corsair. 16.99 [pounds sterling]. 978 1 4721 5365 4 Baxter Stone is a documentary filmmaker, seasoned Londoner and abject husband and father. [...]

Peter Carey A LONG WAY FROM HOME 368pp. Faber. 17.99 [pounds sterling]. 978 0571 33883 2 With disarming fluency, Peter Carey channels the voice of Irene Bobs, a 1950s Australian [...]

Javier Manas THUS BAD BEGINS Translated by Margaret Jull Costa 512pp. Penguin. 18.99 [pounds sterling]. 978 0 241 97280 9 After just eight words of Thus Bad Begins, an apparent [...]

Anton Chekhov UNCLE VANYA Almeida Theatre, until March 26 There is nowhere to hide on Hildegard Bechtler's set for this new production of Uncle Vanya, adapted and directed by Robert [...]

David Stacton A FOX INSIDE 306pp. Paperback, 12 [pounds sterling]. 978 0 571 29594 4 THE SELF-ENCHANTED 304pp. Paperback, 11 [pounds sterling]. 978 0 571 29468 8 REMEMBER ME 275pp. [...]

Anthony Burgess A CLOCKWORK ORANGE Soho Theatre NAPOLEON SYMPHONY 384pp. Serpent's Tail. 12.99 [pounds sterling]. 9781 84668 916 1 NAPOLEON RISING Adapted by Anjum Malik BBC Radio 3, December 2 [...]

Milan Kundera THE FESTIVAL OF INSIGNIFICANCE Translated by Linda Asher 128pp. Faber. 14.99 [pounds sterling]. 978 0 571 31646 5 Milan Kundera's pointedly unconventional approach to the novel has, over [...]

Theresa Rebeck SEMINAR Hampstead Theatre, until November 1 Many people like the idea of being a writer. Theresa Rebeck's Seminar, directed by Terry Johnson, confronts such idealized ambitions with the [...]

Kevin Elyot MY NIGHT WITH REG Donmar Warehouse, until September 27 Written in 1994, Kevin Elyot's My Night with Reg is set in what was then the recent past and [...]

Joan Littlewood OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR Theatre Royal Stratford East Joan Littlewood's Oh What a Lovely War, her 'musical entertainment' about the carnage and insanity of 1914-18, developed speedily [...]

Flann O'Brien THE SHORT FICTION OF FLANN O'BRIEN Edited by Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper 159pp. Dalkey Archive. Paperback, $14.50. 978 1 56478 889 4 PLAYS AND TELEPLAYS Edited by [...]

C.S Lewis's first collection of essays, Rehabilitations, was published in 1939, and in the centenary year of his birth, his polemical works of Christian apologetics retain their initial popularity. The Chronicles of Narnia are to be reprinted and the RSC is to stage The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Although these are famous works, he produced more than 40 books on subjects such as philosophical science fiction, poetry and literary history.

THE SECRET AGENT The Young Vic, then touring There is nothing of goodness or hope to be found in The Secret Agent. The setting is monstrous Victorian London. Vladimir, First [...]

Eric Reinhardt THE VICTORIA SYSTEM Translated by Sam Taylor 480pp. Hamish Hamilton. 14.99 [pounds sterling]. 978 0 241 14558 6 Eric Reinhardt, a Parisian freelance publisher, has written five novels. [...]