Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One by Kristen Arnett (Corsair, £20)
The opening scene of this novel features a clown escaping through a bathroom window after sleeping with a woman at her child’s birthday party. Her tool of pleasure? A magic wand. It is almost an achievement then, after such an energetic beginning, that what proceeds is a drag. Arnett’s third novel follows lesbian Cherry, and her clown persona, Bucko, in their quest for artistic excellence, as she navigates the death of her clownish (but not clown) brother and her challenging relationships with her mother and her mother-age girlfriend/mentor. As a comment upon gender and sexual identity, late capitalism and its impact upon art, the novel proves somewhat interesting. However, if what you are seeking is a story to engage and move you, look elsewhere. This airless novel will leave you feeling like the drooping rose of a burnt out clown. – Brigid O’Dea
The Shape of Things Unseen: A New Science of Imagination by Adam Zeman (Bloomsbury Circus, £25)
Adam Zeman is a neurologist at the very forefront of research into the science of imagination, the focus of his third book. Taking his readers on a tour of their inner lives, Zeman draws on (sometimes) familiar scientific concepts to unlock the various workings and wanderings of the mind, including the “maladies, remedies and extremes of imagination”. Terms like pareidolia and aphantasia are explained through anecdotes and literary allusions; Zeman has a particular affinity for the Romantic poets. In thinking about thinking, Zeman encourages his readers to let their minds wander, to interact with the book’s various questions and quizzes. The Shape of Things Unseen, which oscillates about the main axis of human creativity, is accessible, memorable, and, quite frankly, imaginative. – Emily Formstone
Take Six: Six Irish Women Writers, Edited by Tanya Farrelly (Dedalus, £11.99)
In this powerful anthology, Tanya Farrelly curates six distinct voices exploring the fractures of contemporary Irish womanhood. The short stories span dystopian futures, where daughters are outlawed, to quiet acts of voyeurism, all threaded with emotional tension and ethical ambiguity. Mary Morrissy’s Holding On simmers like a slow trap; Geraldine Mills’s XX chills with maternal defiance; Nuala O’Connor’s Surveillance unsettles with creeping obsession. Rosemary Jenkinson’s The Peacemaker exposes the dragnet of political memory, while Mary O’Donnell’s The Creators conjures an eco-dystopia where female labour is conscripted. Farrelly’s own For the Record captures the erosion of safety after adolescent violence. Take Six reveals charged moments where resistance flickers against silence, insisting on the complex realities of identity, power, and survival in a world narrowing by degrees. –Adam Wyeth
