#literary-fiction

#literary-fiction

John Irving's return to the world of The Cider House Rules headlines a publishing calendar so overstuffed with treasures, plenty of them don't even appear below. Those painful omissions include a pair of memoirs from celebrated storytellers and an investigation into big tech. Hopefully, though, this list of six sterling options will still have some use for any overwhelmed readers looking for a more manageable foothold.

Once in a while, mistakes happen. I mention this mistake because it testifies to something powerful about Patrick Ryan's new novel, Buckeye. When I made a late request for an advance review copy of Buckeye, the copy I received looked fine, but when I opened it I realized it was mistakenly bound backwards. The title page was at the very end of this over-450-page novel.

The Third Realm is quite different from the first two books in Knausgard's Morning Star series, even though the characters come from the earlier novels. With breathtaking confidence, Knausgard mirrors the first book, The Morning Star, giving us other, richer perspectives on the material. The book opens and closes with Tove, the manic-depressive wife of the jaded academic Arne. And her mix of despair and insight, humour and visionary brilliance turns out to be what these novels need most.

Tom is clearly in the Hardyesque tradition of unworldly young men who tend the land or work with their hands (Gabriel Oak, Jude Fawley), and it's this that alerts us to his vulnerability to charmers and chancers. Apprenticed by his pop at 14 (every other Flett had been a shrimper, going back to his great-grandpa), Tom nevertheless longs for a life less circumscribed.

Recommended readings include a variety of genres, with notable suggestions such as 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' by Sarah J. Maas and 'Dirtbag Billionaire' by David Gelles.

Baird's quasi-satirical story emphasizes the tussle between high-mindedness and baser instincts. As a librarian observes, the dictates of reason were no match for the flash of celebrity.

"In Blushes the ghost world we're shown is the suddenly empty one created by the Covid pandemic, with its unpeopled streets and rising death toll."