I lost all my childhood books. I don’t remember how it happened. I wasn’t paying attention. We moved around in my growing-up years, between houses and between countries. Boxes were packed, shipped, unpacked seamlessly every few years as I moved through childhood, adolescence and then teens. We didn’t cleave to things, or to places. ‘Nah,’ I would have said, if my parents had asked whether I wanted to keep them.
Audition, Katie Kitamura
My review of Katie Kitamura's new novel, Audition, is up at Newtown Review of Books now. Challenging, rewarding. Unsettling. Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, Kitamura’s latest novel contains many things jostling for our attention. The two parts, or perhaps twin novellas, which make up this work are centred around the same set of characters: …
A year on the bike
Might get wet. I watch the sky through my window, low cloud massing, the few blue streaks wiped out with a fat grey Sharpie. The gum trees rock back and forth but no splash appears on the glass, yet. I am as attuned to the weather as a farmer, the app my constant companion. Yet …
The Idea of You, Robinne Lee
First published in the Newtown Review of Books Solène Marchand is a 39-year-old co-owner of a stylish mid-size art gallery in Los Angeles, specialising in representing work of women and people of colour. She co-parents her young daughter with her ex, entertainment lawyer Daniel, lives in a beautiful home, travels to Europe regularly on the …
Your Second Draft 