Assembly by Natasha Brown (4*)

My roll of short great novels continues.

Race and class in Modern Britain circa 2013 . Social climbing today for old money and new. Privilege and expectation versus work hard, work harder mantra or the migrant and the masses. Although some passages feel like creative writing exercises re-used, this woman can write. She makes the essence of her protagonist explode from the concise 100 pages of tight text into full bloom in your mind.

Deservedly on the Granta 2023 Best of Young British Novelists list

On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, Translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland (4*)

This book takes the concept found in Groundhog Day, and in The Time Traveller's Wife etc and runs with it in 1st person narrative of antiquarian book seller Tara. As she tells her husband about the repetition , each day's recantation getting longer and longer, we see her try to maintain then be a voyeur and then remove herself from his 18th, from his life, their house, their life. It was an addictive listen. Ive ordered Book 2 of the series from the library to see how she develops this and where she takes it.

The Song of the Safina #1 : The Republic of Memory by Mahmud El Sayed (4*)

I seem to be on a good reading run at the moment. This one is the latest. Another first novel and it is a stonker (*) of a book, marvellous world building, up there with the best, layered full of politics, love, linguistic classes, uprising and revolution aboard a generational ship.

Oh the wait for book 2!! I just hope it is already well underway in the publication pipeline.

Mahmud El Sayed is a British Egyptian writer, translator and former journalist. He won the 2023 Future Worlds Prize for his novel at that time being entitles "What the Crew Wants". This is not a Prize I was aware of but found the 2026 shortlist on Substack and if other winners are the calibre of this one they should be worth reading.
A stonker is British slang meaning "something that is very good, impressive, or an extreme and massive example of its kind."