Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick the best books that they have read this year. Jaki McCarrick My reading in 2019 was disparate and strange. At night I mostly read fiction, some novels I had already read or missed classics or works published a few years previously. During the day, I read books I’d been asked to review, much…
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick the best books that they have read this year. Lisa Harding When I was gifted the much-hyped bestseller Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, I was sceptical. The grandiose claims that this a ‘once-in-a generation book’, that it is a ‘masterpiece’,’ astonishing’, ‘compelling’, an ‘instant classic’ made me weary and wary, and yes, prone…
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick the best books that they have read this year. Jo Mazelis Around January of this year I began writing and researching a novel set in London in the 1970s. My research was varied, covering everything from music, history, politics and subculture. One of the key books, A Hero For High Times by Ian…
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick the best books that they have read this year. Mary Morrissy Maybe because I’m far advanced into the writing of a novel, I’ve found myself reading a lot of non-fiction this year, and reluctant memoirists, in particular, it would seem. As a result, all of these writers seem to write slant about personal…
Dear Dad, How are you? I wanted to tell you about a book I’ve been reading. I’ve been thinking about it and about you for a while. You taught me to love physical books, the smell and the feel of them and I confess I’ve spent too long head-down, reading on devices and screens, words…
As a commuter, I became interested in repetition. For the guts of a decade, I’ve worked in a part of Dublin that is out in the suburbs, miles away from where I live. To get there by 8.15 am, I walk a bit, then get a tram, then a train. The entire process takes about…
Tim Evans I first got the news by text, at 8.40 in the morning. I double-checked it on Facebook and phone and eventually realised it was true. But I still couldn’t really believe Mark was dead, because he was the last person I could ever imagine dying…. Not just in his performances, but in his conversation,in his writing, in everything, his life energy was there, keen-edged, mercurial. I had seen him, just weeks ago, at Spoken Word Saturday. To never see him again seemed, well, impossible. I first bumped into him in Swansea years back at a Howl poetry night in Mozarts, in the dark, fin-de-siecle, sticky–floor decadence that was Mozarts’ trademark. In the gloomy back room, Mark’s lanky, loose-jointed frame seemed too tall for the place. And then once he started speaking, started using his voice, you realised you were in the presence of a rare talent. Yes, he was…
It was during my final year in Berlin that Johannes began drinking in the pub. He came on Fridays, to end the working week sitting at the corner of the bar. Johannes went to the pub, he said, to be somewhere different than the places he spent the rest of the week, to be among…
We’re delighted to announce our second London event at The Music Room, 49 Great Ormond Street. Featuring readings from Toby Litt, John Freeman, Angela T. Carr, Fiona O’Connor, Gary Budden, Lucie McKnight Hardy & Grahame Williams. Hosted by John Lavin. There are a limited number of tickets for this event, which may be purchased below via…
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick their favourite books of the year. Cynan Jones It’s been a strange twelve months. I had a baby right at the start of it. That pretty much blew reading out of the water for most of the year. I was sent a lot of unbound proofs ahead of publication,…
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick their favourite books of the year. Valerie Sirr One of the rewarding outcomes of subscribing to small publishers of books and magazines is the surprise packages that drop through your letterbox from time to time like unexpected gifts. Another source of books this year is an old bookshop with several…
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick their favourite books of the year. Gerald Dawe With the volume of book publication hitting dizzying heights, matched by the promotional buzz of the market-place and sales via self-promotion, it sometimes feels that ‘literature’ has become just another product in the digital world of global media. Whatever is good for…
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick their favourite books of the year. Jo Mazelis The intriguing title of Martina Evans’ Now We Can Talk Openly About Men is taken from a phrase that the author remembers was once spoken when a group of her female relatives were gathered together. All of the women that day…
Gary Raymond is a novelist, critic, editor and broadcaster. He is one of the founding editors of Wales Arts Review, and has been editor since 2014. His second novel The Golden Orphans was recently published by Parthian and chosen as Pick of the Week in The Bookseller. He is a widely published critic and cultural commentator, and is the…