Author, Book review, Ernest Hemingway, Fiction, literary fiction, Publisher, Reading Projects, Scribner, TBR 2026 Challenge

‘The Old Man and The Sea’ by Ernest Hemingway

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Fiction – Kindle edition; Scribner; 82 pages; 2014.

The Old Man and the Sea does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s about an old man who goes to sea in a small skiff to catch the greatest fish of his life.

Published in 1952, it was Ernest Hemingway’s last major work, but it was the first I’d ever read by him. Why had I never read him before? His clean, crisp style is **exactly** the kind of writing I appreciate most.

The story plays out over three or four nights, and the entire plot revolves around a Cuban fisherman’s capture of a marlin, that large wonderous, spear-snouted migratory fish that favours the open sea.

It really is as simple as that, yet in Hemingway’s capable hands, there’s an element of excitement that had me furiously turning the pages, eager to find out what was going to happen next: would Santiago, the fisherman, succeed or would the injuries he sustained to his hands and back mean the marlin would get away?

Most people, I suspect, know the answer, but I came to this novella unaware of how the narrative would play out and I found the “twist”, for want of a better word, completely surprising but brilliantly executed. This is not so much as an old man versus a marlin, but an old man versus Mother Nature, red in tooth and claw, at her most ferocious. It’s elegant in its brutality.

Continue reading “‘The Old Man and The Sea’ by Ernest Hemingway” →
A Year with Iris Murdoch, Author, Book review, England, Faber and Faber, Fiction, Iris Murdoch, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, short stories, TBR 2026 Challenge, Vintage Classics

‘Under the Net’ by Iris Murdoch

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A Year With Iris Murdoch | #IrisMurdoch2026

Fiction – paperback; Vintage Classics; 286 pages; 2002.

I am myself a sort of professional Unauthorised person; I am sure I have been turned out of more places than any other member of the English intelligentsia (page 156).

So says Jake Donoghue, the narrator of Iris Murdoch’s debut novel, Under the Net, the story of a struggling young writer and translator turfed out of his rented accommodation with nary a penny to his name, who must then survive on his wits alone.

Except Jake doesn’t seem to have much common sense, judging by the number of absurd predicaments he gets himself into over the course of this picaresque novel.

These predicaments include — in no particular order — breaking into a hospital, breaking out of a building he’s been locked in, detonating a safe, stealing a famous dog for blackmailing purposes, and getting caught in a political riot on a film set. And that’s just for starters!

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Giveaway

Celebrate Reading Independent Publishers Month with a double book giveaway

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February is Reading Independent Publishers Month 6, hosted by Kaggsy, and to celebrate, I have a special treat for fellow book lovers. Indie publisher Transit Lounge accidentally sent me two copies of each of its latest releases, so I’d love to share my spares with you!

Up for grabs are:

‘The Cross Thieves’ by Alan Fyfe – Two hungry boys set out from their squat by a slow river on a not quite mythic quest for revenge. At the same time, a local pastor drives from his beachside home to visit a dying parishioner. What each means to the other will be revealed as brothers, Gark and Pell, run for their lives over one desperate night, across a coastal town haunted by its past.

Alan Fyfe is an award-winning writer and poet from Western Australia. I read his earlier novel, T, in 2024 and was really impressed by it.

‘Department of the Vanishing’ by Johanna Bell – In a world falling silent, Ava works to rebuild lost species from fragments of art and science. A mysterious ghost pulls her deep into the archives, uncovering secrets that challenge what we know about life, loss and hope in an age of mass extinction. Department of the Vanishing blends documentary poetry, archival image and narrative verse to explore the vital questions: Can we live in a world without birdsong and is it possible to create a new opus with the fragments left over?

Johanna Bell lives in Tasmania. This book won the University of Tasmania Prize at the 2025 Tasmanian Literary Awards.

About Transit Lounge
Transit Lounge is an independent press based in Melbourne, Australia, dedicated to publishing exciting new fiction and non-fiction. Its catalogue is broad, spanning literary fiction and upmarket genre writing such as psychological thrillers. It has a particular interest in creative literary publishing that entertains while promoting insights into diverse cultures. You can see all my Transit Lounge reviews here.

How to enter:

  1. Tell me your favourite indie press.
  2. Let me know which book you’d like to win.

This competition is open worldwide, though overseas winners may receive their prize by sea mail, so it might take a little longer to arrive. Winners will be drawn at random on 1 March 2026.

Author, Beatriz Serrano, Book review, Fiction, Harvill Secker, literary fiction, Publisher, Setting, Spain, translated fiction, women in translation

‘Discontent’ by Beatriz Serrano (translated by Mara Faye Lethem)

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Fiction – paperback; Harvill Secker; 180 pages; 2025. Translated from the Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem.

At its most basic level, Discontent by Spanish writer Beatriz Serrano could be described as yet another “sad girl” novel, the story of a young woman disenchanted with the life she’s living and unsure how to change it. But that would do this debut novel a disservice, because it is so much more than that.

It’s really an uncomfortably recognisable satire of contemporary office life, where young professionals occupy important-sounding roles that are effectively meaningless, existing more to generate emails, meetings and slide decks than any tangible outcome.

The story is narrated by 32-year-old Marisa, who works at an advertising agency “in a middle management position with employees working under me”. She claims she doesn’t “know how to do anything” and hates what she does, which is “to be nice and sell snake oil” (page 7).

Continue reading “‘Discontent’ by Beatriz Serrano (translated by Mara Faye Lethem)” →
Author, Book review, Ferdia MacAnna, Fiction, Ireland, literary fiction, New Island, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, TBR 2026 Challenge

‘The Last of the High Kings’ by Ferdia MacAnna

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Fiction – Kindle edition; New Island Books; 168 pages; 2012.

Ferdia MacAnna’s The Last of the High Kings is part of New Island’s Modern Irish Classics Series, which is a small collection of notable contemporary Irish works that have been reissued. It was first published in 1991.

A coming-of-age tale, it’s set in Howth, Dublin, during the “summer of punk” (which Google tells me was 1977) and follows the exploits of Frankie Griffin, a music-obsessed 17-year-old awaiting his exam results.

Convinced he’s going to fail, Frankie dreams of escaping his rambunctious, chaotic family and moving to California, preferably with Jayne, a girl he has a crush on.

The book offers a comic portrayal of Irish family life but lacks depth and a compelling narrative, drawing mixed comparisons to Roddy Doyle’s work.

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Author, Book review, Fiction, literary fiction, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, TBR 2026 Challenge, USA, Vintage Classics, William Maxwell

‘They Came Like Swallows’ by William Maxwell

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Fiction – Kindle edition; Vintage Classics; 160 pages; 2001.

Some time in the past month or so, I read an article online that claimed William Maxwell’s 1937 novel They Came Like Swallows was experiencing a resurgence. Frustratingly, I now can’t find that piece online (if you know it, please drop me a line in the comments), so I can’t remember the reasons for its sudden popularity.

But to my mind, Maxwell (1908-2000) has never really fallen out of favour since his small collection of novels was reissued by Vintage Classics in the early 2000s. In fact, I put him in the same bracket as John Williams, who wrote Stoner, which became an early cult favourite of bloggers in the early days (circa 2005-6).

This is all by way of saying, I didn’t read this because of its alleged sudden popularity — I bought my paperback copy years ago and also have it on Kindle (don’t ask why, sometimes I purchase books twice, not knowing I already have it). I had previously read Maxwell’s later novel The Château, published in 1961, and felt ambivalent about it. But those who left comments under my review indicated that his earlier work was better.

But when I tried to read They Came Like Swallows in 2022, I abandoned it. It’s a story about the Spanish Flu, and even though I read quite a few books about pandemics during Covid, I think I’d had enough by that point (hadn’t we all?) and so I put it aside for a later date.

That later date was last week. Sometimes we aren’t ready for books when they first come along — for all kinds of reasons — and have to wait for a more fitting time to pick them up. And then when we do pick them up we wonder why it didn’t work for us first time round because the second attempt is so rewarding!

Continue reading “‘They Came Like Swallows’ by William Maxwell” →
A Year with Iris Murdoch, Author, Book review, England, Faber and Faber, Fiction, Iris Murdoch, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, short stories, TBR 2026 Challenge, Vintage Classics

‘The Sea, The Sea’ by Iris Murdoch

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A Year With Iris Murdoch | #IrisMurdoch2026

Fiction – paperback; Vintage Classics; 608 pages; 2019.

The Sea, The Sea, published in 1978 and winner of the Booker Prize that same year, was my first encounter with Iris Murdoch’s work.

It proved to be a wonderful way to kick off A Year with Iris Murdoch, which I am co-hosting with Cathy from 746 Books throughout 2026.

At more than 600 pages, it was a slightly daunting prospect, but one that turned out to be ideal for a steady, nightly 30‑minute read throughout January before lights out. I don’t think it’s ever taken me so long to read a book — although I did read a few others alongside it.

At its centre is Charles Arrowby, a retired playwright and theatre director who has withdrawn to a house by the sea to write his memoirs. As he announces early on:

I am Charles Arrowby and, as I write this, I am, shall we say, over sixty years of age. I am wifeless, childless, brotherless, sisterless, I am my well-known self, made glittering and brittle by fame. I determined long ago that I would retire from the theatre when I had passed sixty (page 4).

After four decades in the spotlight, this should be a quieter phase of life: time to swim daily in the sea, cook eccentric meals, read books, and transform a ruined martello tower into a private study retreat. But starting over proves far more complicated than Arrowby anticipates.

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Author, Book review, Fiction, Gina Apostol, literary fiction, Philippines, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, Soho Books, South Africa, TBR 2026 Challenge

‘Bibliolepsy’ by Gina Apostol

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Fiction – Kindle edition; Soho Press; 217 pages; 2022.

I have never read a book by a Filipino author before, and I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel set in the Philippines either, so Gina Apostol’s Bibliolepsy proved to be a great way to stretch my reading horizons.

Originally written in English, the novel was first published by the University of the Philippines Press in 1997, earning the Philippine National Book Award for Fiction that same year. It would take another 25 years before Soho Press brought it to readers in the United States in 2022.

One of the reasons I wanted to read it was its setting: the mid-1980s, during the corrupt rule of Ferdinand Marcos, whose iron-fisted regime — and shoe-obsessed wife — dominated the headlines during my teenage years. Yet the politics remain largely in the background, filtered through the eyes of the first-person narrator, Primi, who lives on the edges of these events rather than at their centre.

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Africa, Author, Bloomsbury, Book review, Colum McCann, Fiction, literary fiction, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, South Africa, TBR 2026 Challenge

‘Twist’ by Colum McCann

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Fiction – paperback; Bloomsbury; 256 pages; 2025.

Colum McCann’s eighth novel, Twist, has an unusual premise: an Irish writer boards a cable repair vessel to write about the undersea fibre-optic cables that carry the world’s communications.

The tubes are tiny. They are hollow. They weigh nothing. All they carry is light. I can’t presume to explain this. It is one of the things that still continues to fill me with wonder (page 235).

But Twist is more than a novel about submarine cables. McCann adds human drama by throwing into the mix a ship’s captain leading a secret life, a plot hinting that these critical cables could be sabotaged, and characters with personal obsessions.

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Author, Book review, Fiction, literary fiction, Nadia Davids, Publisher, Setting, Simon & Schuster, South Africa

‘Cape Fever’ by Nadia Davids

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Fiction – paperback; Simon & Schuster; 240 pages; 2025. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

My first book of the year turned out to be both a compelling read and a problematic one.

Nadia Davids’ Cape Fever is a moody, Gothic-tinged novel about the fraught, double-edged relationship between a domestic servant and the once-wealthy woman who employs her.

Their intense, interdependent bond is a powerful lens through which to explore class, race and prejudice, but I struggled with the depiction — and with the way the novel ends up exoticising the very things it appears to be critiquing.

Set in 1920 in an unnamed colonial outpost — most likely Cape Town in South Africa — the story unfolds through the eyes of Soraya Matas, a 19-year-old Muslim girl who takes a job as a live-in maid to Mrs Hattingh, a widowed woman living alone in a beautiful but slowly decaying mansion.

Continue reading “‘Cape Fever’ by Nadia Davids” →