I read books, write books (Mothers, A Lonely Man) and write about books (LRB, Guardian, NY Times etc). 2025 Booker judge.
Hackney, London
Joined December 2008
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I wrote a little bit about fictional approaches to death, via Jon Fosse’s Morning and Evening, for the Guardian theguardian.com/books/2024/d…
In 2025 I’ve decided to just read
We’re thrilled to reveal the #BookerPrize2025 judging panel.
Roddy Doyle will act as chair of judges, and will be joined by @ayobamiadebayo, @SJP, @chris_power and @kileyreid.
thebookerprizes.com/the-book…
‘@FitzcarraldoEds has acquired an "exciting" new trilogy by Nobel Literature Laureate Jon Fosse, set in a fictional fishing village in western Norway.’
Wonderful news. I’ll go back to a Norwegian fishing village as many times as Fosse will send me there.
A modernist novel in 19th-century formal wear, richly epigrammatic, hypnotic, and sometimes long-winded. Pritchett described Musil’s writing in The Man Without Qualities as “pushing through… strange undergrowth”. Some say the book is slow and meditative, others that it moves at
cracking speed. It’s unfinished, which at 1130pp seems perverse, but its incompleteness is fitting (one of Musil’s numerous unrealised plans was to end it mid-sentence, with a comma). William Gass called it “the most intelligent and unflagging scrutiny modern life has ever had
Having been told more than once over the last couple of years that I’m young for a cancer patient, it’s nice to hear that according to Private Eye I’m also young to be the presenter of a books programme on Radio 4. The secret of youth: do/get stuff mostly older people do/get.
Out today: the first English-language collected edition of Roberto Bolaño’s brilliant, mysterious, endlessly rewarding short stories. It was an honour and a joy to write the introduction.
Chris Power retweeted
"In many ways Lowry is closer to Melville and Conrad than Joyce, but he creates his corner of Mexico in a manner similar to the Dublin of Ulysses: not by describing it so much as by building an alternate reality from language."
theguardian.com/books/2011/n…
I wrote about Hanif Kureishi and his extraordinary memoir for the @NewStatesman newstatesman.com/culture/boo…
Great remembrance of Paul Bailey by @leorobsonwriter in the @NewStatesman newstatesman.com/culture/boo…
Chris Power retweeted
Farewell, Open Book - thank you for the memories and the TBR pile. Congratulations @DiSpeirs @klockes @naylorbels for making such a brilliant and erudite programme. We will miss you.
Tune in on Sunday afternoon for the last ever Open Book, featuring @kamilashamsie, @mrsjaneymac and @TeditorTed talking to me and @johnypitts about their most memorable books of the last 25 years @BBCRadio4 @BBCSounds
Chris Power retweeted
The end of an era. Raising a glass to the passion & expert brilliance of the team behind Open Book @BBCRadio4 @chris_power @johnypitts @octaviabright_ @elizabday @mariellaf1
@klockes @NicolaHolloway7 @allegramcilroy @naylorbels Emma Wallace @rickwoska @DiSpeirs et al 4pm today
Tune in on Sunday afternoon for the last ever Open Book, featuring @kamilashamsie, @mrsjaneymac and @TeditorTed talking to me and @johnypitts about their most memorable books of the last 25 years @BBCRadio4 @BBCSounds
I wrote about Olga Tokarczuk’s oddly - but I think deliberately - off-kilter novel The Empusium for @GuardianBooks. Warning: contains sperm-squirting parasites. theguardian.com/books/2024/o…
