Books

‘Death in Her Hands’ toys with the conventions of crime fiction in ways that are often heavy-handed 

Learning to survive a jittering feed of survivalist pro tips and transhumanist dreck

Green unpleasant land? As the UK braces for election week, it might be time to abandon the myth of Englishness

The most remarkable thing about ‘The Mysterious Correspondent’ is the way it deals directly with gay and lesbian characters

Awarding the Nobel to a Milosevic apologist, splitting the Booker Prize, and the death of the Western canon’s most ardent defender: what is the political function of literary culture today?

Radical feminist Valerie Solanas is the ambivalent guiding force in Chu’s debut book Females

In ‘All That Beauty’, it’s not a matter of seeing better, or more clearly; it’s a matter of seeing more widely and wildly

‘Walking alone, he denied himself short-cuts in exemplary style’

The prolific Polish writer has a complicated relationship to nationality

In the Dream House grapples with the ‘bad PR’ of an abusive queer relationship

The newly reissued novel maps the intimate spatial connections between fascism and patriarchy in postwar Austria

A new book wants to understand the individuals – and identities – beneath the ‘somewhat derogatory label’

In ‘Coventry’, events seem to happen to somebody else, to a person Cusk repeatedly exposes and judges

Reckoning with the legacy of Jim Harrison, whose writing portrayed women like meals – meant to give pleasure and comfort, without having any hunger themselves

Like Vivian Maier’s photography, Christina Hesselholdt’s novel embraces digression and relishes humanity in its multiplicity

Diana Hamilton reflects on the dual urges to be beautiful and well-reviewed – even when you want to reject both desires

The author of ‘Beloved’ and Nobel Laureate was a leading light of US literary life in her work as an editor and writer

Sara Sinclair’s new anthology of interviews recalls the parties, the poverty and the ongoing hero worship

Christina Hesselholdt’s newly-translated book, Vivian, turns the late American photographer’s life into a novel

The frieze editors recommend medieval feminist experimental fiction, 1930s socialist tracts and the latest sci-fi