memories
The benign republic of Julian Barnes
The novelist presents his utopia – of unilateral disarmament and the public ownership of transport – in the tone of a thoughtful vicar giving an anodyne sermon somewhere in the Home Counties
Clouded memories: Ballerina, by Patrick Modiano, reviewed
An ageing narrator looks back 50 years to ‘a most uncertain’ period of his life in Paris and his relationship with a mysterious, elusive ballet dancer
Portrait of an artistic provocateur: Blue Ruin, by Hari Kunzru, reviewed
A once fashionable YBA now scraping a living in America meets old friends by chance, prompting a deep dive into memory
Haunted by the past: Winterberg’s Last Journey, by Jaroslav Rudis, reviewed
A garrulous nonagenarian and his patient carer make a long train trip to Sarajevo, hoping to solve a decades-old murder mystery
Mystery in everyday objects
Household gadgets take on a sense of wonder or menace for Lara Pawson, who sees a porpoise’s dorsal fin in the dial of a toaster and a hand grenade in a pepper mill
Musings in lockdown: The Vulnerables, by Sigrid Nunez, reviewed
Marooned in Manhattan with a stoned student and precocious parrot for company, our elderly narrator despairs of the novel’s future when life is so much stranger than fiction
Heard but not seen
The simplicity and joy of audio recordings
A stitch in time
What to include in a memory box of the plague year?
Ghosts of Christmas past
Seances, trikes and the miracle of tinfoil
Random souvenirs
Those who have been on creative writing courses may be familiar with the ‘I remember’ exercise. The two words become…
A book about sleep that will keep you up all night
I’ve read several books about sleep recently, and their authors all tell me the same three things. The first is…
Return to the lost city
During a press interview in Bombay about his latest book, the author-narrator of Friend of My Youth feels ‘a surge…
