Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love.

Read This: Jane Borges

What I hoped for with Read This: Books under the Radar is starting to happen. A previous guest, Susmita Bhattacharya selected Bombay Balchão by Jane Borges, and when Jane saw and liked my post on Instagram, I asked her if she would like to take part and select three books of her own. And here we are! Here’s what she has to say about herself:

Jane Borges is a senior Indian journalist, author and oral historian. In 2022, she won the RedInk Award for Excellence in Indian Journalism. Her debut novel, Bombay Balchão (2019), was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puruskar instituted by India’s National Academy of Letters, and Atta Galatta Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize. She has also co-authored the non-fiction Mafia Queens of Mumbai: Stories of Women from the Ganglands (2011) with S. Hussain Zaidi. A chapter from the book was adapted into the Bollywood film Gangubai (2022) by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. She is the co-founder of Soboicar, an oral history archive chronicling the lives of Catholics who migrated from the Konkan to Mumbai. She lives in Mumbai. 
Here are Jane’s recommendations:

Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love, or to see the full list and buy from Bookshop.org UK, while supporting independent bookshops, go here.

Read This: Alice Winn

I was sent a proof of Alice Winn’s debut novel, In Memorium, by her UK editor and I instantly loved it. And so did many other people around the world – it went on to win Waterstone’s Novel of the Year and was Sunday Times bestseller. I had the privilege of interviewing Alice at Hay Festival and more recently at Winchester Books Festival, and I can tell you that she is a very nice person, a great interviewee, as well as a wonderful writer. Here’s what she has to say about herself:

Alice Winn is the author of In Memoriam (Viking, 2023), a novel about forbidden love among soldiers in the First World War. She is American and Irish and grew up mostly in England and France. You can find her on Instagram.

Here are Alice’s recommendations:

Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love.

Read This: Barney Norris

I know Barney Norris as a novelist, but as you’ll see below he is also a theatremaker and if you’re interested in finding out more about his theatremaking skills, his latest play, The Band Back Together, is running at the Arcola Theatre in east London until 28th September. I know him primarily as a wonderful novelist, and I’m pretty sure I was first introduced to him via a Winchester Waterstones bookseller called Bob – who has since retired. I have interviewed Barney about his books and he’s interviewed me. Always enthusiastic and full of life. Here’s what he has to say about herself:

Barney Norris is a writer and theatremaker whose novels include Five Rivers Met On A Wooded Plain and Undercurrent, and whose plays include Visitors, Eventide, Nightfall and The Wellspring. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford, has won many awards for his writing and been translated into ten languages. Undercurrent is available here and you can follow him on X and Insta: @barnontherun.

Here are Barney’s recommendations: