We Love This Book

EMMY THE GREAT READS: TAI PEI Our new guest reviewer is singer-songwriter Emmy the Great. Emma is going to be writing a monthly review for us, and is starting with Tai Pei by Tao Lin. Last year, while procrastinating for several months over whether or not to buy the book Mr G by Alan Lightman as a Christmas present for my dad, I became aware, due to the proximity of Lin to Lightman on alphabetically organised bookshelves, of an author called Tao Lin. I would flick through Tao's poetry collection You're a Little Bit Happier Than I Am. Then I would pick up the thickest of his books, Tai Pei, with its glitter hologram typeset title, and I would read Bret Easton Ellis' quote proclaiming Tao the voice of his generation, and I would procrastinate over whether or not to buy it as well.  READ MORE >

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MICHELLE MAGORIAN'S INSPIRATION FOR BACK HOME The author of the iconic children's book, Back Home, tells us about the photograph that inspired the story in celebration of the book's release as "A Puffin Book" edition. MORE >

MAN BOOKER 2014 LONGLIST ANNOUNCED This year's contenders were revealed on Wednesday, in the prize's first year to include American authors. Longlisted books include Us by David Nicholls (pictured). MORE >

	BOOK OF THE WEEK

IN LOVE AND WAR by Alex Preston This is a novel that captivates the reader immediately then ramps up the tension until you can’t put it down. It begins with the charming, naive Esmond Lowndes, despatched to Italy to escape the scandal of an unsuitable affair and prove himself by setting up a radio station in Florence. But this is Italy in 1937 and the radio station is intended to promote links between the British Union of Fascists and Mussolini’s government.  The narrative position shifts from third person to a more intimate and immediate knowledge of Esmond from his letters and the secret diary recordings he makes on the back of the broadcast tapes, pulling the reader closer and closer into Esmond’s changing world and the realities of the Italian Resistance movement. Beautifully written, this is a fresh and fascinating view of Italy before and during the Second World War, and an unusually complex story of the death of innocence.    MORE >