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Welcome to A Novel Review, the book podcast where every week, Seamus reviews a different book. For 2025 Seamus is doing a ‘Book World Tour’ where every month he ‘travels’ through literature to another country. The rules are simple: Each month he reads two books – one male and one female and the author has
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The Book World Tour has taken flight and landed in Afghanistan. In the Patience Stone, Atiq Rahimi gives a voice to women living through circumstances that see them constantly beleaguered by society. A woman nurses her husband who is in a coma in a room surrounded by the ongoing violence of war. But, as the
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The 30 best book of the 20th century. A curated list presented over three episodes all comes down to this final piece of the puzzle. The top 10 best books (in my opinion) of the 20th century. A conclusion to a list that will take many shapes throughout my life.. and at the moment, this
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Expectation lingers at the peripherals of this tale as the pressure builds with every page. Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s novel ‘Stay With Me’ explores the pressures of a society and culture that rest upon the foundation of expectation. The expectation to get married and have kids to further the family name. A pressure that bubbles within the
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The Claw of the Conciliator sends the reader deeper into the labyrinth of Gene Wolfe’s imaginative science fantasy novel. Weaving the tale, there is only one way in and one way out. Severian the torturer, tortures us as the reader with a story that raises so many questions in the chaos of the narrative and
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Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart flips the colonial script. Okonkwo, fierce as a misplaced proverb, fights change to a fault. But when tradition clashes with colonialism, even the strongest warrior can’t wrestle fate. Achebe doesn’t just tell a story – he reclaims one, reminding us that when things fall apart, it’s the silence that screams
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Throughout literary history, many remarkable women writers have been overlooked or forgotten, their voices buried beneath more celebrated names. Among them is Marghanita Laski, a prolific mid-20th-century author and critic whose sharp insights and evocative storytelling deserve renewed attention. Laski’s works, rich with psychological depth and social critique, exemplify the enduring value of these often-sidelined
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Creating a list of the 30 best books of the 21st century with some rules is difficult enough but what makes it harder is just trying to remember all the books you have read in the first place. Join Seamus as he starts his list, counting down the 30 best books across 3 episodes! Painting:
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Days at the Morisaki Bookshop is a cozy cup of tea for the soul, steeped in heartbreak, healing, and the musty charm of secondhand books. Takako flees a crumbling life and tumbles into the quirky quiet of her uncle’s Tokyo bookshop – where literature whispers solace and dusty paperbacks double as therapy. It’s a love
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In The Shadow of the Torturer, Gene Wolfe hands us a scalpel and says, “Figure it out.” Severian, our melancholic torturer with a soft spot for doomed women and old words, stumbles through a decaying Earth like a poetic space-opera Don Quixote. It’s sci-fi wrapped in fantasy dressed as philosophy – beautifully baffling, like reading
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The world book tour takes flight once more and this month we are off to Japan with the first stop in the kitchen! Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto is a melancholic hug wrapped in the scent of home-cooked meals. It’s a tale of grief, love, and late-night ramen, where kitchens become sanctuaries and loneliness simmers on
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