Black Swan Green

For me, this was a masterpiece. Then again, I admit to being a huge David Mitchell fan. But what this novelist is able to do—with language, with storytelling—well, I find it incredibly impressive.

And he clearly takes such delight in it. This book has few supernatural or quasi-supernatural fireworks of other Mitchell novels, and it's the opposite of futuristic, but you don't feel the lack. You can almost hear the author cackling in the background; he's a born entertainer who also happens to have a great deal of basic human wisdom to impart.

I stand in awe and eagerly await… show more.

I read this book years ago but it’s always stayed with me.

The teenage protagonist, 13-year-old Jason from Worcestershire, England, has a stammer: a speech difficulty that haunts him and has him performing all kinds of manoeuvers to avoid saying certain sounds in class. This would only add embarrassment onto all the other embarrassments he feels as a boy going through puberty.

He calls his stammer ‘Hangman’. As well as this daily struggle, he realises his parents are arguing, and he gets bullied at school.

As a reader, I was touched by his resilience and doggedness. David Mitchell has admitted… show more.