Leyla Sanai

Mesmerisingly Creepy, 3 Oct 2012

How The Trouble Started

- Robert Williams

Faber and Faber �12.99

Reviewed by Leyla Sanai

Unreliable narrators are the spice of literature, but what of narrators whose veracity is never revealed? Is Donald, sixteen year-old narrator of previous Betty Trask winner Robert Williams's novel, an unfortunate loner with no insight into the way his behaviour appears? Or is he a self justifying psychopath with no capacity for guilt or remorse, who rewrites his life the way he would have us believe it? Or perhaps both?

Donald's life changed when he was eight when he was responsible for the death of a two- year- old. He has two memories of this… Read more

Atmospheric and Beautiful, 8 May 2012

Art Journey America Landscapes - 89 Painters' Perspectives.

Edited by Kathryn Kipp

In our modern world where America is often associated with technology, business and industry, it's easy to overlook the fact that the American continent also offers a vast array of stunning landscapes. Photography is one way of appreciating this natural beauty, but another is through the more subjective lens of the artist's eye. This volume is testament to this range of natural beauty and individual talent in recreating it.

Kipp is an experienced arts editor and has edited more than 200 previous titles. In this book, she gathers together lush colour plates of works from eighty… Read more

Zona, 11 Feb 2012

Zona - Geoff Dyer
Canongate �16.99
Reviewed by Leyla Sanai

A gambler trying to guess the topic of a future Geoff Dyer book would always be destined to lose. Not only is Dyer versatile in form (novels, novellas, essays, non-fiction books), but his range of chosen topics has been so eclectic to date that predicting the next would be impossible.

As far as non-fiction is concerned, Dyer's panoramic sweep has included the sacred - *history, literature, photography, jazz - as well as the profane - sex, drugs, Burning Man. Speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival he said in 2010 that the conventional notion that one had to be an expert in a subject before writing… Read more