By Maria Bregman A holiday is the perfect time to read a book you might otherwise put down. Not a light beach read, but something…
By Maria Bregman There is a particular kind of literary reverence reserved for the ‘crisis of faith’ novel. We are invited, with hushed solemnity, to…
By Maria Bregman Not long ago, I watched a celebrated academic, a man whose books had once reshaped his field, struggle to share his screen…
By Alexander Stone The Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival returns for its eighth year on Thursday 8 October, running four days through to Sunday 11…
By Maria Bregman Reading Siân Hughes’s Booker-longlisted debut, Pearl, I was reminded of my great-aunt and the lethal comfort of a good story. The novel has…
By Maria Bregman Åsa Ericsdotter’s novel, Phase 3, is a book for a world that has lost the stomach for such work. It arrives packaged as…
By Maria Bregman I remember my first trip to Island. I was nineteen, on a layover, and my impression of the place was formed in…
By Sara Bright Carys Davies’s historical novel, Clear, has won the main prize at the Wales Book of the Year awards. The news was shared by…
By Maria Bregman I remember standing in a Gibert Jeune in Paris some years ago, faced with a wall of Michel Houellebecq’s work. The covers…
By Maria Bregman I remember the summer of 2017 with a peculiar clarity. Not for the political upheavals or any personal milestones, but for the…