Reviews & features: Books, Kate Gould

Zaiba Malik

Attempting to dispel a few myths about Islam

Zaiba Malik’s experience of her Muslim faith has been one of humility, humour, exploration, and horror. It has taken her from the comedy and anxieties of a childhood in Bradford to imprisonment in Bangladesh for ‘anti-state activities’, while filming a…

Alberto Manguel will discuss All Men Are Liars

And why we should step back from the over-reliable narrator

Alberto Manguel’s latest book, All Men Are Liars, is ‘a tribute to falsehood’ in which no one is a reliable source; not the enigmatic figure whose death is being investigated, not those who knew him, nor Manguel himself. It’s a concept that challenges…

David Bainbridge

Debunking the myths surrounding teenagers

Vilified, hated, dismissed, feared and ridiculed, with a reputation blackened beyond damage limitation by even the deftest of spin doctors. Teenagers may be the least fashionable or genial of causes to champion, but that is exactly what David Bainbridge…

Eleanor Catton

Exploring the personality-shaping notions of adolescence

Eleanor Catton’s The Rehearsal is a study of and search for reality. Following a group of teenage girls as they attempt to navigate adolescence with its attendant agonies and anxieties, it delves into the labyrinthine and precarious relationship between…

Lisa Appignanesi - Express yourself

Kate Gould finds Lisa Appignanesi on good form as she discusses the history of health and the future of censorship

Thomas Glavinic

Telling a tale about the very nature of being

From Mary Shelley’s The Last Man to I Am Legend, the idea of being the last person alive would seem to have an abiding fascination. Thomas Glavinic’s take on it, Night Work, tracks Jonas, who awakens one morning to discover he has, for reasons that are…