There are many ways of making contemporary fiction contemporary. So I may, I think, write about the intergenerational effects of genocide and forced migration without betraying an obligation to write about the particular genocide taking place just after the novel is set. I may let the shadow of contemporaneity hang over a story that becomes historical as fast as I write. I hereby make unacknowledged legislation. I ring the bell.
The Boys, in its prose and in its structure, is almost entirely made up of odd kinks of specificity – as are we all, of course, and as is the world. Hardly bothering with the conventions of “the novel”, it nonetheless – or perhaps I mean therefore – creates a mood that is less like fiction and more like life. It is a rather luminous, eccentric and memorable book.
Filled with imagination, wit and heart, The Wycherleys is a novel that delivers it all and still leaves readers wanting more. If you’re in the mood for a Regency-esque fantasy with modern attitudes and a genuinely lovable central duo, you’ll find few better than this.
I often saw the vagus nerve when operating, at the base of the brain or in the neck – a small, insignificant thing, the width of a thin matchstick. I knew it to be an important but rather boring nerve that had something to do with digestion and how fast the heart beat. I had no idea that in recent years it would become the centre of a major industry, claiming that vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) will increase our “vagal tone”, leading to a longer, happier and healthier life. In The Great Nerve, Dr Kevin Tracey, a leading researcher into the vagus nerve and its electrical stimulation, tells us the treatment is“poised to revolutionise the way many millions… of people, are cared for… treating the inflammatory threats looming over humanity”. He looks forward to a “new age of bio-electronic medicine”.