Lucia Hanrahan is an artist, but her work has long been overshadowed by that of her monstrous egotist husband Ray. To order At the Table, The Joy of Science or Listening Still go to authors of two of 2022’s funniest novels about families join us in Belfast.Ĭharlotte Mendelson’s The Exhibitionist is about ambition, art and the anxiety of balancing priorities.
Griffin sensitively explores Jeanie’s struggle for self-fulfilment in an assured second novel. Her marriage is characterised by emotional compromise and she is full of regrets about the risks she dared not take in life. But Jeanie is torn by the many obligations in her life, both to the dead and to the living. Like her father, she can hear the thoughts of the recently deceased and give voice to their final wishes and desires. Jeanie Masterson works at the family undertakers in a small town in Ireland. Engaging and illuminating, al-Khalili argues that a scientific approach is “one of humankind’s great riches and the birthright of everyone”. Asking how we might navigate our way through misinformation and conflicting statistics, he proposes that thinking more scientifically can aid our ability to steer a course through truth and uncertainty, doubt, bias and decision-making. The quantum physicist and BBC presenter invites readers to adopt a scientific approach to modern living. Princeton University Press, £12.99, pp224 Filled with razor-sharp dialogue and psychological acuity, At the Table is an astute debut novel about dysfunctional family life. Her brother, Jamie, is having second thoughts about his impending marriage and becomes obsessive about diet and exercise. Nicole is a successful commercial director for a technology company but also a functioning alcoholic. When Linda and Gerry Maguire announce their separation after decades of marriage, their thirtysomething children find the news difficult to digest.
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