Book Reviews

Calypso

David Sedaris Humourist David Sedaris here presents his latest collection of autobiographical sketches. Yes, there are the routines about his Fitbit obsession and his search for the language with the most offensive swearwords, but there are poignantly personal strands too; the ache of his mother’s untimely death and the processing of his sister Tiffany’s recent suicide. Sedaris tells us how he turned away from Tiffany as she struggled, telling himself she was “someone else’s problem. I couldn’t deal with her anymore”. This admission tests the limits of the Sedaris approach. You admire the candour, and you have no wish to judge, but after this it becomes a little harder to slip back into laughter mode at this otherwise painfully funny and breathtakingly gifted writer. 9/10

The Changeling Victor LaValle

Second-hand bookseller Apollo Kagwa grew up pretty much fatherless, except for a recurring nightmare and a box of nostalgic junk, so when he and his wife Emma welcome their son Brian into the world, he’s determined to get things right. What he doesn’t factor in is Emma seemingly losing her mind. Apollo is thrown, juggernaut-like, into a surreal New York that’s spliced through with monsters, the creeping terror of what social media can leave you open to and how absurd the idea of living ‘happily-ever-after’ is if you analyse the practicalities. It’s never silly but at times the folkloric layers and witchified moments fall a little flat. Sinister and exposing, if occasionally laboured, it’ll certainly make you rethink your online presence. 6/10

How To Be Famous Caitlin Moran

In How To Build A Girl, Caitlin Moran’s debut novel, The Times columnist’s heroine Dolly Wilde gets cystitis and has to sit in a boy’s bathtub, eating crisps and topping up the water, until the burning stops. It’s brilliant, true to life and ridiculously funny – and it’s Moran being Moran. She’s back on form with How To Be Famous, which sees precocious music writer Dolly, now 19, questioning her male-dominated industry, colliding with an older, sleazeball comedian, and still madly in love with musician John Kite, who’s become a total girls-can’t-stop-screamingat-him popstar. It’s raunchy, rascally, sweet, silly, joyous and also strangely ordinary – in a good way. I defy you not to relate or ask the same questions as Dolly. Also, it’s a right laugh. 8/10