Chris Power lives in London. His short story collection Mothers will be published by Faber in 2018.
November 2024
Book of the day
V13 by Emmanuel Carrère review – harrowing account of the Paris attacks trial
A chronicle of the largest criminal case in French history from a master of the genre
October 2024
Book of the day
The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk review – hallucinogenic horrors
The Nobel laureate’s riff on The Magic Mountain takes on a darkly surreal life of its own in this tale of a young man’s visit to a health resort
September 2024
My Roman Year by André Aciman review – Memento amore
The Call Me By Your Name author’s memoir looks back on his teenage years
June 2024
Book of the day
Hungry for What by María Bastarós review – darkly compelling tales from Spain
A sense of dread hangs over this gripping short-story collection, the author’s first collection in English
April 2024
Book of the day
Diaries by Franz Kafka review – caught in the act
His uncensored journals disclose a messier, more sexual, complex figure – and reveal much about the process of writing
December 2023
Book of the day
You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue review – the birth of Mexico
Real events are compressed into one extraordinary day as Spanish conquistadors penetrate the heart of Aztec civilisation, in a novel of hallucinatory vividness
November 2023
Book of the day
Our Strangers by Lydia Davis review – miniature short stories
The latest collection from the US author known for her playfulness and brevity has a wintry feel
October 2023
Nobel prize winner Jon Fosse: ‘It took years before I dared to write again’
In 2012, the Norwegian novelist and playwright collapsed. He gave up drinking, retreating from the public eye – then, earlier this month, he got a call from the Swedish academy. He discusses how it feels to win a Nobel prize
July 2023
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein review – life in limbo
The trauma of the Holocaust is invoked for an uncertain journey into guilt and complicity
June 2022
The War for Gloria by Atticus Lish review – a gripping struggle for selfhood
The American award winner brings his laser-like focus to the story of a teen and his terminally ill mother
May 2022
Devil House by John Darnielle review – mysteries and rumours
A true-crime author investigates an occult double murder in this metafictional puzzle from the Mountain Goats frontman
March 2022
Book of the day
Paradais by Fernanda Melchor review – snakes in Eden
A Mexican gated community offers no protection in this chilling novel by the author of Hurricane Season
July 2021
Book of the day
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura review – difficulties of interpretation
Tipped by Barack Obama, this is an addictively mysterious novel about a woman adrift in her own life
June 2021
On the Road to Bridget Jones: five books that define each generation
Blake Morrison on boomers, Chris Power on Gen X, Megan Nolan on millennials and Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé on Gen Z … which books shaped your generation?
April 2021
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez review – unsettling tales
A gripping collection that draws on the Argentinian military dictatorship to mix daylight horrors with supernatural shocks
November 2020
A brief survey of the short story
Stuart Dybek: bungee jumping through the trapdoors of time
Unaccountably little-known outside the US, his stories take the reader from a carefully observed midwest into a past that is very much alive
July 2020
Short and sweet: the best stories to read right now
Thought-provoking, intense and consumed in one sitting, do short stories make for a perfect reading experience? Chris Power finds out, and shares the all-time greats
June 2020
We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time by AL Kennedy review – telling without showing
From a row at a zoo to the tale of a Holocaust survivor – the promise of these short stories is deadened by detail
May 2020
Book of the day
Pew by Catherine Lacey review – a foreboding fable
I wish more people would read
I wish more people would read … A Scrap of Time by Ida Fink
