Autumn is traditionally the time of year when the publishing industry gets serious, when high street bookshops gird their collective loins and reinforce their shelves. In other words, the big hitters are coming: the Christmas bestsellers; the celebrity memoirs; the hidden treasures. Amongst this deluge may well be titles not quite worth everybody’s focus and attention, but the following most certainly are.
The Bridge by Colm Tóibín
Ireland’s greatest living writer returns with a new 128-page novella mere months after a fine short story collection, confirming that alongside “greatest”, we can now add “most prolific”. Tóibín is a master, because with just a few economic brushstrokes he tells the kind of profound tale of family connection and dislocation that other writers would struggle to tell in 500 pages.
Out now, published by Picador, £9.99
The Golden Hours by Louisa Young
