Jo Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

Jo

…I really like this idea of the rhythm of a tennis ball going back and forth across the court being something that formally influences the novel. Or even the idea of the game of squash formally structuring the novel. So definitely I’m hugely intrigued in that.

Jo

…I did have that abiding sense that it was a sort of popular choice, a pop novel, but actually I found it to be deeply philosophical and incredibly nuanced and I thought that that label of it being a pop novel perhaps undersold it.

Jo

I don’t know that I would call it a pop or a popular novel. I would certainly call it, as James Wood did very cartoonish and certainly a very visceral reading experience.

Out of stock

Jo

I feel like he’s really coming into a golden period that I’m quite happy to see... if for that reason you haven’t yet read a Percival Everett novel, but you are a fan of Paul Beatty or Zadie Smith, or NoViolet Bulawayo, then you could definitely pick up James and give it a go.

Jo

📣 @TheBookerPrizes podcast launches today 📣 We kick off with @JamesWalton_ and I discussing our love for Patrick McCabe’s ‘The Butcher Boy’, and Patricia Lockwood’s ‘No One Is Talking About This’. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. https://t.co/WnpgRlYSYQ https://t.co/JbDfI8GgOz

Jo

Cursed Bread presents a subtler rendering of how enough desperation behind the words “I want” can make one ill, and is all the more gripping for it. “What would ever be enough?” ... Mackintosh has entered a brilliant new stage of writing.

Jo

On finishing, I reflected: what would it be to hold a book with a soul? I felt I had. I felt changed, and utterly the same... I had gone more deeply into the world, reattuned to its networked thrum of pleasures, miseries, worries, and erotics that I might already have been aware of – but dully.

Jo

Kawakami’s novel is uncompromisingly candid in its appraisal of the harm women inflict on one another, while never losing sight of the overarching structures that lead them to do so in the first place. Compact and supple, it’s a strikingly intelligent feat.

Jo

beautifully radical debut...“Dwelling” deserves the plaudits it will surely get and more. It’s hard to believe that a work so seemingly effortless and original could be a debut. Certainly, it’s the most fun I’ve had reading in years.

Jo

My @LRBbookshop interview with Mohsin Hamid for his latest novel, THE LAST WHITE MAN, is now available in podcast form! Please listen, and enjoy: https://t.co/xIiumqfxQU