Copyright: Jo Billingsley 2009
Rosie Boscawen discovers the joys of the Mallard Small Press comics
Teeming with poetic, quirky and sometimes downright disturbing short stories and comic strips, the most recent publication from Mallard Small Press, Mallard 6, is a most welcome treat.
Joe Baddeley’s sketches never fail to amuse – the particularly immature but destined always to be funny, “Your mum’s a recession”, has shot to front page fame, and is an especial favourite. The sadistic (though characteristically plain-looking) man who celebrates the death of a delicate bird is also worth a guffaw …

A review of the late Stieg Larsson’s eccentric thriller.

Durham University graduate, Oliver Balch, is returning to his alma mater on March 17 to promote his new book ‘Viva South America! A journey through a restless continent’, published by Faber & Faber this month.

Flora Midgley & Hannah Ryley hang out with Durham academics…

Zahra Dharsi discovers her inner feminist with Laura Kipnis’ The Female Thing…

Chris Wright gets to grips with Clive James’ weighty new tome, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of my Time, a dazzling summary of the twentieth century’s cultural giants…

Olivia Varley-Winter enjoys Tom Coffey’s Blood Alley, a fantastical crime thriller set in 1940s New York…

Zahra Dharsi is gripped by Matthew Reilly’s summer blockbuster…

Chris Wright reads Violence…

Alex Marshall looks into the future and wonders if the Amazon Kindle will be a success…

James Russell is hypnotised by literary power with Lloyd Jones’ Booker-shortlisted novel…

Post-Valentine’s Day, Jo Smee thinks that Cecelia Ahern’s there’s-life-after-death chick lit is just what we all need…

James Russell thinks that ‘How To Do Theory’ by Wolfgang Iser is too, well, theoretical…

Zahra Dharsi is impressed by the potency of this Booker-shortlisted novel…

Olivia Varley-Winter tries to match head and tail of Leon de Winter’s answer to gastro-porn.