IN AN INDUSTRY THAT’S STILL, mostly, too self-consciously classy to give star ratings on its reviews, we nonetheless long to share — just as you demand to know — the best of the best. Is it that book I raved about and you bought but never got around to? The prizewinner where the chippy author interview put you right off? Or perhaps an improving Kindle download which, at least, can be safely abandoned without glaring at you from the table like those horrid paper books?
To locate the goods, you may wish to browse the history of this column in your practical binder of back issues of , and that will uncover some of the greatest fiction published this year: Gwendoline Riley’s , a domestic horror comedy so cutting and perfect that its absence from prize lists can only be the result of fire, theft or a lost password; Jhumpa Lahiri’s , a book as light or rewarding as, a black comedy that’s a rare crossover between “books John Self likes” and bestsellers; Phillip Ó Ceallaigh’s , a flawless collection of stories that would have got him cancelled if anyone had read them, from a man who, when he says “there are too many books and too many writers”, knows he’s not one of them; and Roddy Doyle’s , a set of stories so good that the fact they were inspired by Covid lockdowns seems merely incidental.
