Photo of Chris Power
Chris Power

Book critic

Chris Power writes a weekly paperback review for The Observer. He is the author of two books, the novel A Lonely Man and the short story collection Mothers, both published by Faber. His criticism can also be found in the London Review of Books, the New York Times and elsewhere. He was a judge for the 2025 Booker Prize.

Photo of Chris Power

Chris Power

Book critic

Chris Power writes a weekly paperback review for The Observer. He is the author of two books, the novel A Lonely Man and the short story collection Mothers, both published by Faber. His criticism can also be found in the London Review of Books, the New York Times and elsewhere. He was a judge for the 2025 Booker Prize.

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: Base Notes by Adelle Stripe

    Stripe’s immersive memoir of her Yorkshire upbringing breathes in the smells – sweet and foul – of a lifetime’s experience

    Fri, 20 Feb 2026

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: The Virago Book of Friendship

    The late Rachel Cooke anthologises the experience of female relationships in all their complexity

    Thu, 12 Feb 2026

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: Nada by Jean-Patrick Manchette

    The French author brings chaotic energy and leftist politics to this tale of ragtag revolutionaries

    Fri, 6 Feb 2026

  • Chris Power
    Mathias Énard: ‘I write with a bastard tongue’

    The novelist on the myths of the Middle East, the horrors and wonders of history, and life at a Madrid museum

    Thu, 5 Feb 2026

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week – Israel: A Personal History by Göran Rosenberg

    Rosenberg was raised to believe the state of Israel was a ‘blessing’, only for years of human rights abuses to convince him otherwise

    Sat, 31 Jan 2026

  • Chris Power
    Siddhartha Mukherjee: ‘This disease is intrinsically linked to panic and fear’

    When a tumour was discovered in Chris Power’s abdomen, the oncologist’s book became indispensable

    Fri, 30 Jan 2026

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: The Tiger’s Share by Keshava Guha

    Against the backdrop of a stifling polluted Delhi, two sets of siblings go to war over family inheritances

    Thu, 22 Jan 2026

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: Righting Wrongs by Kenneth Roth

    Roth spent three decades as head of Human Rights Watch. His record of past victories is also a warning for the future

    Sat, 17 Jan 2026

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

    A new edition of this mysterious and immersive novel reminds us why it is one of the greatest ever written

    Thu, 8 Jan 2026

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: Pelican Child by Joy Williams

    The real and fantastical merge in this landmark collection from an idiosyncratic American master of the short story

    Sat, 3 Jan 2026

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: The Lord by Soraya Antonius

    A sophisticated, still-relevant story of a Palestine struggling for independence

    Thu, 18 Dec 2025

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: Your Name Here by Helen DeWitt

    This strange and fascinating digital missive, co-authored with Ilya Gridneff, is powered by a manic, metatextual energy

    Sat, 13 Dec 2025

  • Chris Power
    The Future Loves You by Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston

    The Australian neuroscientist puts forward his case for how we might achieve eternal life – but without sweating the philosophical stuff

    Thu, 4 Dec 2025

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: We Live Here Now by CD Rose

    The 2025 Goldsmiths prize winner is a fitfully brilliant tale set in the art world that blends the arcane with the mundane and the uncanny

    Fri, 28 Nov 2025

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: On the Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle

    The third instalment of the thrilling Danish series about a women stuck in a time loop takes a politically subversive turn

    Thu, 20 Nov 2025

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week:  Blinding by Mircea Cărtărescu

    The first in the Romanian author’s autobiographical trilogy is a strange but beautiful tangle of memory and fantasy

    Sat, 15 Nov 2025

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: Dog Days by Emily LaBarge

    A fascinating study of the trauma narrative drawing on a real-life encounter with armed thieves

    Sat, 8 Nov 2025

  • Chris Power
    Paperback of the week: Driver by Mattia Filice

    A French train driver’s 20-year career across the tracks is distilled into a remarkable free-verse novel about the rhythms of work

    Thu, 30 Oct 2025

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