James Walton | The New York Review of Books

James Walton

James Walton is a writer and broadcaster. He is the editor of The Faber Book of Smoking and the author of the literary quiz books Who Killed Iago? and The Penguin Book Quiz: From “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” to “Ulysses.” He is a cohost of The Booker Prize Podcast, which will begin in early July. (July 2023)

The Hemon Variations

After wild forays, Aleksandar Hemon has written an achingly responsible new book.

The World and All That It Holds

by Aleksandar Hemon

July 20, 2023 issue

Doomed to Lucidity

Though Andrew Miller is a master of traditional narrative, he has struggled to escape the formulas of his fiction.

The Slowworm’s Song

by Andrew Miller

October 6, 2022 issue

‘Everything Is Fiction’

Keith Ridgway’s novels and stories try to render life as it is before the contrivances of fiction have gotten to it.

A Shock

by Keith Ridgway

December 16, 2021 issue

Selfies from Hell

John Lanchester’s collection Reality and Other Stories aims to restore a sense of the uncanny to our digitally driven lives.

Reality and Other Stories

by John Lanchester

July 1, 2021 issue

Infinite Quarantine

Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi is both topical and autobiographical, two unexpected qualities for a novel about a wicked magician-scientist exiling the protagonist to an enchanted world.

Piranesi

by Susanna Clarke

April 8, 2021 issue