Review 31

A literary review. We cover non-fiction, literary fiction and poetry. Est. 2011

[Review 31 @Review31]

"One can catch glimpses not only of the ways in which Ireland has changed, but also into the ways in which Ireland, & Irish literature, continues to evolve."

Tadhg Hoey on Martin Doyle's A HOSTING: INTERVIEWS WITH IRISH WRITERS 1991-2026 (@LilliputPress) https://t.co/JffF4HW9rP

[Review 31 @Review31]

"Those looking for poetic diction will be thinly sated... What there is instead is a relentless exercise in auto-therapy, working through, stumbling on the occasional breakthrough."

@StuartWalton1 on Joe Carrick-Varty's BEFORE VIOLENCE (@Carcanet)

https://t.co/QTpTl85d3U

[Review 31 @Review31]

"Halfon’s descriptive, collative method allows her to remain slightly askance of Gombrowicz, sketching out his contradictions without ever flattening them."

Simon Firth on OUTSIDER EVERYWHERE: WITOLD GOMBROWICZ IN ARGENTINA

https://t.co/rlLPkbxsQX

[Review 31 @Review31]

"The enlightenment promised on the other side of limbo never arrives, & the novel’s cast spend their time mulling over the details of a political project that ends up feeling more like purgatory than revolution."

Katherine Williams on THE MONROE GIRLS

https://t.co/IkY0iPpCDX

[Review 31 @Review31]

"The Palm House is a funny book. Part of me wants to write blackly funny; darkly funny — but in truth, it’s the humour that operates the levers of complexity."

@mj_sprackland on Gwendoline Riley's THE PALM HOUSE

https://t.co/DMHthzoZ8E

[Review 31 @Review31]

"Tara Menon’s debut novel is a welcome addition to our growing stacks of ‘serious fiction’ about the Anthropocene’s deadliness to human & non-human life."

Matilda Sykes on UNDER WATER

https://t.co/na8FY69uNd

[Review 31 @Review31]

"The book began from a simple, even misguided, motive to make a quick buck."

Ilya Gridneff talks to Luke Dunne about YOUR NAME HERE (@DeepVellum)

https://t.co/7Smckkl6m9

[Review 31 @Review31]

"At his best, Lerner combines fiction & criticism to postulate both a novel vision of the social possibilities of art & the artistic possibilities of socialising."

@nickbartlett332 on Ben Lerner's TRANSCRIPTION (@GrantaBooks)

https://t.co/JCIhmn5Dq0

[Review 31 @Review31]

"An eloquent, humane work of criticism, which displays Vendler's typical sensitivity to what Wordsworth called the ‘turnings intricate of verse.’"

@BretVDB on Helen Vendler's INHABIT THE POEM: LAST ESSAYS

https://t.co/YjRiFZljbW

[Review 31 @Review31]

"There is a life outside of the costume, a role that’s not been written. It’s hard to find but it’s there."

@tcmangan on Isabel Waidner's AS IF

https://t.co/OoPBzs0M8t

[tori.doc 🍉 @tcmangan]

my review of isabel waidner's new novel just dropped with @Review31! as an admirer of waidner's since i ordered one of their books in my sleep in 2017, this was a real joy to write ☺️

https://t.co/5inivpujc1

[Bret van den Brink @BretVDB]

https://t.co/YhPlbyRQLQ

[Bret van den Brink @BretVDB]

I reviewed Helen Vendler’s marvellous “Last Essays” for @Review31! (Linked below)

[Review 31 @Review31]

"Doctorow’s style throughout is conversational, furious, funny. Each page crackles with analogies, jokes & anger. He is that rare activist who can make antitrust law read like a thriller."

Christopher Webb on Cory Doctorow's ENSHITTIFICATION (@VersoBooks) https://t.co/Z8241fwwKF

[Review 31 @Review31]

"Doctorow’s style throughout is conversational, furious, funny. Each page crackles with analogies, jokes & anger. He is that rare activist who can make antitrust law read like a thriller."

Christopher Webb on Cory Doctorow's ENSHITTIFICATION (@VersoBooks) https://t.co/Z8241fwwKF

[Charco Press @CharcoPress]

The Plains, by Federico Falco and translated by Jennifer Croft, is a "moving and beautifully made novel".

Thank you @Review31!

https://t.co/oHWKWplZYF

[Review 31 @Review31]

"If nature is unassimilable to metaphor, it’s also unassimilable to conventional narrative shapes. Like the crises afflicting it, nature is too open and expansive to be contained under the few acts of a plot’s arc."

https://t.co/pENUyQiPGu

[Review 31 @Review31]

"If The Plains succeeds from an ecocritical perspective, it also illustrates the structural challenges posed by the climate crisis to the contemporary novel."

Archie Cornish on Federico Falco's THE PLAINS (@CharcoPress)

https://t.co/pENUyQihQW

[Review 31 @Review31]

"If The Plains succeeds from an ecocritical perspective, it also illustrates the structural challenges posed by the climate crisis to the contemporary novel."

Archie Cornish on Federico Falco's THE PLAINS (@CharcoPress)

https://t.co/pENUyQihQW

[Review 31 @Review31]

"The letters convey a picture of two writers in alternating states of vitality & decline, pushing against the threat of both illness & obscurity."

Rachel Dastgir on LETTERS TO EUGENE (@SemiotextePress)

https://t.co/yPk2vWhxHv