Phil Mathews

Country People

This is a highly enjoyable and original novel that delves into stories within stories. The author, Daniel Mason, says, “As a psychiatrist, I spend much of my time thinking about why people believe things that aren’t true and yet the books I love most are often those that are the most fanciful and imaginative.

The Traveller: the revolutionary life of George Forster and his search for humanity

If you like biography and history and a meaty read, this may well be a summer treat for you. Traveller, naturalist, philosopher and revolutionary, George Forster is the visionary of his era that you may well never even have heard of.

Upward Bound

It is no surprise that this is such an insightful book. The author Woody Brown has lived or sat alongside most of what he writes about here, with such eloquence and feeling. He is the first nonspeaking autistic graduate of UCLA, where he received top writing honours in English, and this is his first novel, drawing compellingly on his own experiences and empathic perceptions.