The ending of Joe Dunthorne’s new novel, The Adulterants, is so good I had to go back and reread it immediately to try to figure out how he did it. So far, I have discerned only that his brilliant ...

It was a happy setting for an author intrigued by the perpetual weirdness of human behaviour. There has been quite a wait for The Adulterants, a contemporary tour of several of the deadly sins, but it ...

The vast majority of book reviews are about newly released books. The focus on reviewing new books — and don’t get me wrong, the books I write about here are often new — is actually a little silly, ...

The novelist’s debut memoir, Children of Radium (Scribner, Apr.), uncovers how his great-grandfather, a Jewish chemist, ended up making weapons for the Nazis. What inspired you to write this book? I ...

Blind idealism is an easy target for comedy. But when idealism fails - as it did in the lost utopias of Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and most cruelly of all in Jonestown - we are left with a tragedy of ...

BBC Sounds have announced two brand new commissions which will air in spring as part of the popular history strand We are delighted to add not one but two new history series to our popular history ...

Looking back, the hardest aspect of being a teenager wasn’t the acne, the inappropriate hormonal rage or even the fumbling attempts at first love. No, the hardest aspect of being a teenager was how ...

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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind, translated by John E. Woods, chosen by Iszi Lawrence Historical fiction author and broadcaster Iszi Lawrence adores the sensational novel Perfume, ...

The first two novels were set in or around Swansea, where Dunthorne grew up. The Adulterants relocates to a patch of north-east London where a coterie of thirtysomethings are trying to see their way ...