Culture Wars reviews contemporary fiction along with regular feature coverage of fiction festivals such as Jewish Book Week and prizes like the Orange Prize and Man Booker.

Browse books by title with CW new books archive feature.

The Nick of Time - (Man Booker Prize 2003)

Chick and lad novels have made us used to London appearing as the backdrop to the feisty feminist Getting Her Man or the carefree bloke Settling Down. In his latest book, The Nick of Time, Francis King gives us another view of the city.

The Light of Day - (Man Booker Prize 2003)

Way back in the olden days when most of the working class visited the cinema at least once a week (long before the continual entertainment of television), buckets of tears were shed over a particular type of film.

Turn Again Home - (Man Booker Prize 2003)

In this novel, Ms Birch tells the story of a Northern working class family, a tale that stretches from just after the First World War onwards over three generations. In choosing this theme, she immediately sets herself a problem and raises a question in her reader’s mind.

Unless - (Man Booker Prize 2002, SHORTLISTED)

Unless is a subtle and intelligently written novel which tackles the drama of ‘goodness’ as opposed to ‘greatness’, examining loss and suffering through the curious details of everyday life.

The Story of Lucy Gault - (Man Booker Prize 2002, SHORTLISTED)

The Gaults are a rich Protestant family, whose position in rural Cork was already on the decline before the events of 1921 put an end to their world for good and forced them into exile. Lucy Gault is a nine-year-old child who understands only that she must leave the one home she has ever known.

Fingersmith - (Man Booker Prize 2002, SHORTLISTED)

‘“It’s a girl,” I say. And when she hears that she cries out with all her lungs: “Then God help her! For the world is cruel to girls! I wish she had died, and me with her!“‘

Family Matters - (Man Booker Prize 2002, SHORTLISTED)

Set in modern Bombay, Family Matters follows only a few months in a family’s life. Nariman Vakeel, the grandfather, is a man suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, and the bitterness of his two step-children. Determined to live a normal life, and against their advice, he goes for a short walk and breaks his ankle.

Dirt Music - (Man Booker Prize 2002, SHORTLISTED)

A few pages into Dirt Music, we’re told that Australians are riddled with a ‘sentimental attachment to geography’, and Western Australians, like Tim Winton, are the worst of all.

Life of Pi - (Man Booker Prize 2002, WINNER)

It is a refreshing surprise to find a novel that mixes the usually discordant schools of zoology and philosophy, especially one that does so successfully.

The Autograph Man

Alex Li-Tandem, the Autograph Man, is one of those romanticised losers you often encounter in novels. His self-absorbed, haphazard lifestyle, complete with adolescent job, is endured by his friends, who all, through oversights or mistakes on Alex’s part, are made in some way to suffer for it.