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Most reviewed: Unaccustomed Earth

Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story collection Unaccustomed Earth (Bloomsbury) was popular with critics last weekend, becoming most reviewed title on the literary pages.

In the Financial Times, still-Granta editor Jason Cowley writes that “Lahiri isn’t a noisy or ostentatious writer” and adds: “She mostly writes in delicately poised sentences of unusual clarity but there can be occasional ineelegance usually resulting from her desire to make her sentences too full.” Of the story “Going Ashore”, Cowley says: “[It] is perhaps the saddest story Lahiri has ever written - and yet you finish it feeling uplifted by the artistry and mastery of her technique.”

Hirsh Sawhney in the Guardian points out that Lahiri has been lauded as a teller of immigrant tales and that her previous books were both “groundbreaking in their own way”. He concludes, however, that “the portrait of the US conjured up by this book is insular and antiquated” and that Lahiri “fails to challenge the inadequacies of this elite America”. He adds that “Unaccustomed Earth isn’t a truly provocative or innovative American book”.

Chitralekha Basu in the Independent believes “Lahiri has taken material that is familiar, melodramatic even, yet managed to touch the heights of literary achievement by telling the story on a broad canvas”, while in the Daily Express, Lianne Kolirin writes it is easy to see why Lahiri has been hailed “as the next great American writer”.

“Her prose is beautiful but her language is simple and precise,” adds Kolirin. “Her short stories are as involving as the most moving of novels.”

Sebastian Faulks’ Devil May Care (Penguin) also featured strongly on the literary pages, with comments ranging from “intelligent” and “expertly plotted” in the Sunday Times to “[Faulks creates a villain to rival Dr No” in the Independent.

MOST REVIEWED (6th to 8th June):

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
(Bloomsbury 9780747590002 £14.99)
“Her prose is beautiful” Daily Express
“[The stories] do not fail to hold the reader’s attention” Independent
“Lahiri isn’t a noisy or ostentatious writer” Financial Times
“Unaccustomed Earth isn’t a truly provocative or innovative American book” Guardian

Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks (Penguin 9780718153762 £18.99)
“Creates a villain to rival Dr No” Independent
“Faulks doesn’t write anything like as well as Ian Fleming - not as elegantly, vividly, wittily, excitingly” Guardian
“The atmosphere is rich, the narrative taut yet elegant” Sunday Telegraph
“Intelligent, expertly plotted and engagingly playful” Sunday Times

The Invention of Scotland by Hugh Trevor-Roper
(Yale UP 9780300136869 £18.99)
“The book’s weakness is that, having raised these fascinating questions, it fails to answer them” Financial Times
“Vastly entertaining and highly intelligent” Daily Telegraph
“Witty, ironic and elegantly written” Sunday Telegraph

Uncommon Arrangements by Katie Roiphe
(Virago 9781844082728 £12.99)
“Uncommonly enjoyable” Independent
“Shrewd and entertaining” Guardian
“[Roiphe] succeeds triumphantly” Sunday Times

Media Anna Richardson Most Reviewed Unaccustomed Earth