Today is World Book Day, a celebration of all things literature. It’s only right, then, that we ask our distinguished reporting team what they’ve been getting their teeth into…
Prophet Song, Paul Lynch
I’ve just finished reading Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, which won the Booker Prize in 2023. Present day Ireland slowly transforms into an authoritarian state undergoing civil war, with clear parallels to totalitarianism and humanitarian crises across the world and throughout history, from Poland’s judicial capture to war-torn Syria. It would be easy for a novel like this to feel moralistic with the obvious message of “don’t you know it could happen here?” But Lynch keeps it emotional and fresh by focusing the story on Eilish, a mother of three whose husband is wrongfully arrested at the start of the autocratic takeover.
Rose Henderson
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, Vladimir Nabokov
One part parody of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, one part parody of Victorian pornography, Ada or Ardor tells the story of a doomed, incestuous romance between the aristocratic Van and Ada Veen in a slightly off-kilter world, although the plot is besides the point in this novel. Nabokov creates a lush world full of precise, sensory details and tri-lingual puns only comprehensible to the average Anglo-Franco-Russian. Through the eyes of his protagonist, Nabokov explores his wide range of interests, from the lepidoptery (the study of butterflies) to traditional English manners. No stone is left unturned, no human experience unexamined.
Kieran Molloy
A Month in the Country, J.L. Carr
Some people believe that by moving to the country they somehow leave behind the problems of their lives via rolling hills and the sea breeze. It’s a shame second homeowners believe in this optimism; it’s also ironic that the more Londoners who (quite literally) buy into this philosophy, the more they’ll bump into the very same people they were trying to escape from. I blame Wordsworth. Reading A Month in the Country, the romance of rural life persists, even if Carr doesn’t mean for it to. Its narrator, Tom Birkin – like one of today’s second homeowners –, reflects on his time restoring a Medieval painting in the North Yorkshire village of Oxgodby, romanticising his isolation as he seeks to lock himself away from society.
Vadim Goss
Nightbitch, Rachel Yoder
Nightbitch charts its protagonist’s transformation from mother to feral dog. The hair on the back of her head turns coarse, she feels a protrusion emerging where a tail might grow… the descriptions are visceral. Yoder’s prose is unlike anything I’ve ever read, an urgent stream-of-consciousness account of motherhood and marriage, whose magic realism refreshes well-trodden themes. Some aspects of the book may hit a little close to home for those who juggles parenthood and a career; frankly, it intimidates me as someone who plans to balance those things, however far in the future.
Bethan Moss
The Lost Estate, Alain-Fournier (trans. by Robin Buss)
I first discovered The Lost Estate, a tale of lost youth, nostalgia and broken dreams, on my school reading list back home in Quebec – and it’s been a favourite ever since. The novel acts as a near-self-portrait of the author, with its events and characters closely mirroring Fournier’s own youth in La Chapelle-d’Angillon in rural France. The three main characters represent versions of Fournier at a different age. Seurel captures Fournier’s halcyon youth; Meaulnes reflects the ambition of the author’s adolescence; and Frantz de Gallais shadows Fournier’s disillusion with adulthood. Called Le Grand Meaulnes (lit. “The Great Meaulnes”), it led to F. Scott Fitzgerald calling his 1925 Jazz Age novel The Great Gatsby. Delicately translated into English by Robin Buss, The Lost Estate and its timeless narrative about the pursuit of lost things can be faithfully enjoyed by English readers.
Remigius Kim
You Dreamed of Empires, Álvaro Enrigue
Álvaro Enrigue’s enchanting novel You Dreamed of Empires is a colourful and at times transgressive account of perhaps the most famous tete-a-tete in history: the much-chronicled meeting between Aztec Emperor Moctezuma and conquistador Hernán Cortés. Enrique’s sharp prose conjures an atmosphere of romance and intrigue, and our protagonists – both, in their own ways, prisoners – have started plotting their escapes. By turns funny and moving, this is a fresh, richly entertaining take on a moment in time that has reverberated down the centuries.
Noah Hirsch-Rechter
All That Man Is, David Szalay
I’m reading David Szalay’s quiet masterpiece, All That Man Is. He wrote it while disenchanted with the novel form, and so instead compiled nine stories – each about a different man – where an overall meaning is achieved by the related crises, questions, and desires each character confronts. A Frenchman, doused in kebab juice, discovers the strangeness of desire in a Cypriot hotel; a Belgian philologist implores his girlfriend to have an abortion; a Berezhovsky-esque oligarch is adrift on a superyacht as his empire crumbles. Szalay’s idea of “all that man is” is cynical (greedy, repetitive, cruel), but through deft observation he makes you sympathise with his characters; not so much out of respect or admiration, but because shamefully you recognise them.
Cosmo Adair
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
This book is an annual re-read for me because its directionless teen protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is so relatable. He is irritated by the smallest of things, like people stepping back to make room when they speak. What surprised me most was how Holden – previously a fount of wisdom in my eyes – now seems petulant and hypocritical. He wishes people would have more intelligent conversations yet insists on talking to Carl Luce about his sexual escapades; he labels practically everybody a “phony”, even if all they did was enjoy a “lousy” movie. I love that his American voice comes through so strongly, with phrases like “give someone a buzz” and “horsing around”. And it’s amusing he calls everyone “old”, even if they’re young like his “little kid sister” Phoebe. It seems fitting to finish this review with one of his phrases, so, as Holden would say, this novel really “knocks me out”.
Sarah Smith
Hackney Post Team
Rose Henderson is a freelance journalist, studying for a master's in newspaper journalism at City, University of London. She is a digital content producer at LBC, and her work has featured in The Telegraph and The Oxford Student, Oxford's biggest student newspaper.
Kieran Molloy is a MA Newpaper Journalism Student at City, University of London. He is actively interested in all stories surrounding Stoke Newington ward, particulary those involving politics, gentrification and subcultures. He formerly served as Investigations Editor for Palatinate, Durham University's award-winning student newspaper. Better than AI slop.
Vadim Goss is the correspondent for Hackney Downs. He has previously written for Palatinate — Durham University's award-winning newspaper, where he served as an editor. He has also written for Indigo Magazine, Wayzgoose Magazine, and The Dove where he was editor-in-chief. If you need anyone for a pub quiz on The Great Gatsby, he is your man.
Bethan Moss is Hackney Post's beat reporter for Homerton and a freelance journalist. She is studying for an MA in Newspaper Journalism at City, University of London and was formerly Editor-in-Chief of Varsity, the University of Cambridge's only independent newspaper.
Remigius Kim - Reporter for Hackney Central - Former News Reporter for Torstar Corporation, The Palatinate and The Borgen Project.
Cosmo Adair is a postgraduate journalism student at City, University of London. He writes about Haggerston and very little else.
Sarah Smith is a postgraduate Newspaper Journalism student at City St George's, University of London. She is currently reporting on the Springfield ward in Hackney. She has experience writing for the Climate, Books, Lifestyle and News sections of The Boar, and she has also done work experience at Essex Live. In her spare time, she likes to watch Disney films and spend time with friends.