ON THE POD THIS MONTH

No Ghosts

MAx LURY

First up this month’s is Max Lury’s unsettling debut No Ghosts.

After being reunited at Annie’s memorial, Kieran and Harlow begin separate searches for their lost friend. Harlow, discovers fragments of the dead – faces, gestures, glances – in AI generated videos; Kieran, aimless and isolated, stumbles into an occult community of those dedicated to finding the missing ghosts.

No Ghosts is a novel set in new space - the eerie, boundless simulcra of Ai and the dead air of a spiritless age. Unnerving and uncannily recognisable, it is infused from the first page to the last with the terrible weight of absence.

‘A superb debut novel. It trembles with dread and wit and longing …. a hauntological ode to friendship, to the objects and hyper-objects of our world, and to memory and the thrill of being.’ - Danny Denton

‘Astringent comic realism, twinned with an eerie plot about Big Tech’s power to reframe death.’ - Anthony Cummins, New statesman

Said the dead

Doireann ní ghríofha

From the author of A Ghost in the Throat, an unforgettable book - both history and ghost story - that will leave you gasping by its final page. In the city of Cork, a derelict Victorian mental hospital is being converted into modern apartments. One passerby has always flinched as she passes the place.

Had she lived in another time, she too might have found herself held within those walls. Now, she notices a sign: FOR SALE. It is the first of many signs.

‘An entrancing book - lyrical and propulsive, it sounds out the echoes of history and finds voices and images that are moving and indelible. Reading it is like being put under a spell.’ - Seán Hewitt.

‘ A piercingly beautiful book, that is wounding sometimes and consoling at others, the work, in the end, is life confirming.’ - YiYun Li