Chris Power

The first month of my paperback of the week column in @theobserveruk.bsky.social looked like this.

Coming up in December: a neuroscientist abolishes death, a 20-year-old internet novel, and colonial crimes in Palestine.

‘I knew I was doing something I shouldn’t’: Karl Ove Knausgård on the fallout from My Struggle and the dark side of ambition The Norwegian author on his autofictional epic, moving to London, and the psychopath at the heart of his new novel

I interviewed Karl Ove Knausgård for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...

Paperback of the week: On the Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle | The Observer

My review of the third part of Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume - one of the most exciting things happening in fiction right now observer.co.uk/culture/book...

‘I knew I was doing something I shouldn’t’: Karl Ove Knausgård on the fallout from My Struggle and the dark side of ambition The Norwegian author on his autofictional epic, moving to London, and the psychopath at the heart of his new novel

I interviewed Karl Ove Knausgård for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...

So glad she/he/they got a credit on this

Ha ha that’s way better

‘Inspired by actual events…’

So glad she/he/they got a credit on this

“Are you a special agent sent here to ruin my evening and possibly my entire life?”

I did!

Godrevy Lighthouse of To the Lighthouse fame (I know Woolf transplanted it to Scotland don’t @ me)

Ha ha tell Faber that!

Do it!

Paperback of the week: On the Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle | The Observer

My review of the third part of Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume - one of the most exciting things happening in fiction right now observer.co.uk/culture/book...

Absolutely not thank you

“Did I always understand where I was and what was happening? No. Did I care? Almost never. The power and surprise of the writing is so great that confusion rarely translates into frustration.”

Spot on review of Cǎrtǎrescu’s weird and seductive book:

Thanks Declan!

Blinding: The Left Wing by Mircea Cărtărescu. An incredible Proustian, Schulzian book! Also very happy to bring the existence of Magnus Puke to a wider audience observer.co.uk/culture/book...

I don’t recall a recusal in this particular instance, I must admit

😂

I’ve always been suspicious of the neatness of some essayists’ lives, almost as if… they’re making it up. Emily LaBarge’s Dog Days refuses to plane off the rough edges of her experiences, even if that makes them ungainly and difficult to present in a book. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

Every Sunday I’ll be contributing a paperback column to the Observer’s New Review. Kicking things off is Driver by Mattia Filice (@nyrb-imprints.bsky.social), who’s poured his experience of 2 decades working on the French rail network into an extraordinary verse novel. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

Thanks John!

My 2025

‘but it’s not what you’re supposed to do with a corpse’. Fantastic Stellan Skarsgård: www.vulture.com/article/stel...

Loved my conversation with Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk last night. Death and the Gardener is a beautiful novel

Nicely put

Letter signed, ‘Please accept. Sincerely, Samuel Beckett.’

Perfect!

Unsurprisingly, Keir Starmer doesn’t know the word ‘spine’