Julie Myerson / Features / Untitled Books

Myerson, Julie c Barney Jones 2011 bw.jpg

"I’m a bad reader of short stories – if I find myself deep in a good one then I just wish it was a novel. But someone sent me this collection and – drawn in at first by the brilliant title – I read it almost in one sitting."

Photograph: ©Barney Jones, 2011

Julie Myerson

Julie Myerson, writer and critic, is a regular panelist on the arts programme Newsnight Review. Her novels include Me and the Fat Man, The Touch and The Story of You.

James Frey: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

What I love about James Frey is he's a writer who just loves writing. He can't stop himself doing it! It shows in his rampant narrative energy, his daring to do something different, his outright aplomb. This novel is typically loud and passionate - ringing with the voices of what feel like very real people in contemporary New York. It's unlike anything I've ever read. I believed every word and in the end I was very moved by it.

Joanne Limburg: The Woman Who Thought Too Much

This is a memoir about a woman's struggle to come to terms with her obsessive compulsive disorder. But that doesn't begin to describe it. Self-lacerating and extremely funny, it's also wise, brilliant, beautifully written. Though it explores this mental illness with real acuity, I'd have to say it's also one of the sanest books I've read. So much so that I finished it feeling both comforted and uplifted.

Maille Meloy: Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It

I'm a bad reader of short stories - if I find myself deep in a good one then I just wish it was a novel. But someone sent me this collection and - drawn in at first by the brilliant title - I read it almost in one sitting. Each new story seemed better than the last one. Meloy writes about marriages and misfits, lonely people, missed opportunities. But she does it all with a zest for life and a real empathy for her characters. And the way she puts words together is beautiful as well as true. I'd just defy anyone to dislike this book.

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Then by Julie Myerson is published by Jonathan Cape

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Sunday, 22 May, 2011