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The Zoo of the New
The Zoo of the New
Dec 27, 2025 6:41 AM

Author:Don Paterson,Nick Laird

The Zoo of the New

'So open it anywhere, then anywhere, then anywhere again. We're sure it won't be long before you find a poem that brings you smack into the newness and strangeness of the living present, just as it did us' (from the Introduction)

In The Zoo of the New, poets Don Paterson and Nick Laird have cast a fresh eye over more than five centuries of verse, from the English language and beyond. Above all, they have sought poetry that retains, in one way or another, a powerful timelessness: words with the thrilling capacity to make the time and place in which they were written, however distant and however foreign they may be, feel utterly here and now in the 21st Century.

This book is the condensed result of that search. It stretches as far back as Sappho and as far forward as the recent award-winning work of Denise Riley, taking in poets as varied as Thomas Wyatt, William Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, Frank O'Hara, Sylvia Plath and Gwendolyn Brooks along the way. Here, the mournful rubs shoulders with the celebratory; the skulduggerous and the foolish with the highfalutin; and tales of love, loss and war with a menagerie of animals and objects, from bee boxes to rubber boots, a suit of armour and a microscope.

Teeming with old favourites and surprising discoveries, this lovingly selected compendium is sure to win lifelong readers.

Reviews

A fantastic, chilling story. And so powerfully feminist

—— Bernadine Evaristo, author of GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER

Compulsively readable

—— Daily Telegraph

Out of a narrative shadowed by terror, gleam sharp perceptions, brilliant intense images and sardonic wit

—— Peter Kemp , Independent

The Handmaid's Tale is both a superlative exercise in science fiction and a profoundly felt moral story

—— Angela Carter

Moving, vivid and terrifying. I only hope it's not prophetic

—— Conor Cruise O'Brien , The Listener

The images of brilliant emptiness are one of the most striking aspects of this novel about totalitarian blindness...the effect is chilling

—— Linda Taylor , Sunday Times

Powerful...admirable

—— Robert Irwin , Time Out

It's hard to believe it is 25 years since it was first published, but its freshness, its anger and its disciplined, taut prose have grown more admirable in the intervening years... Atwood's novel was an ingenious enterprise that showed, with out hysteria, the real dangers to women of closing their eyes to patriarchal oppression

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

Turned 25 this year and...worth re-reading. As you grow, such books grow with you

—— Erica Wagner , The Times, Christmas round up

Fiercely political and bleak, yet witting and wise...this novel seems ever more vital in the present day

—— Observer

The mother of all feminist dystopian novels.

—— Sarra Manning , Red

The novel satirises the strain of evangelical puritanism in American culture and the objectification and control of women’s bodies. It is more broadly a contemporary myth of despotic power, and how such power deforms those who are subjected to it.

—— Tim Adams , Observer

It's mesmerising, compelling and considered one of her best.

—— Jennifer McShane , Image Magazine

One of Atwood’s finest pieces of work serves as a great reminder of what humanity is capable of.

—— Hannah Dunn , Red

Margaret Atwood is a wry and perceptive observer of society as well as an original storyteller

—— Cecilia Heyes , Psychologist

Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first century America gives full rein to Margaret Atwood’s devastating irony, wit and astute perception

—— Essence

This is a novel pervaded by violence, sex, terror, but also by contemplation, analysis and – occasionally – by hope… Atwood shockingly reveals what we could be capable of.

—— Elly McCausland , Cherwell Newspaper

It's hard to believe it is 25 years since it was first published, but its freshness, its anger and its disciplined, taut prose have grown more admirable in the intervening years... Atwood's novel was an ingenious enterprise that showed, with out hysteria, the real dangers to women of closing their eyes to patriarchal

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

Lasdun is a renowned writer.

—— Western Mail

Expertly playing the noir card, Lasdun dissects the mercurial relationships among a wealthy financier, his photographer wife and an aimless cousin during a long hot summer in upstate New York. There are plenty of lies and betrayals in this stylish thriller, but it’s the slow burn of obsession that makes it sing.

—— People

The Man Booker-nominated author's critically praised new novel is a Trump Age thriller: A rich banker and his cousin, an unemployed chef, both covet the banker's wife, who is having an affair with a fourth person. Things end badly.

—— Hollywood Reporter

This is a one-sitting read, a whitewater ride to hell in which Lasdun hurls headlong into the psyche of his stalker, in this instance a thirty-something former chef called Matthew… In fearlessly observing sentences, Lasdun – who has an architectural imagination – unlocks room after room of Matthew’s psyche… Brilliant.

—— Frances Wilson , Oldie

We all wish we could erase, obscure, or even simply accept the past. Perhaps the message of The Fall Guy is that, however extreme our mistakes, we will still regard them as aberrations, bizarre swerves away from our true selves, rather than what they really are: the purest expressions of our prejudices, fears and desires.

—— J. Robert Lennon , London Review of Books

Superbly engaging and intelligent psychological thriller… A compulsively readable tale of money, power and betrayal.

—— Rebecca Rose , Financial Times

A creepy little satire.

—— Harriet Lane , Observer

A riveting psychological thriller.

—— Guardian, Books of the Year

The story becomes very intense as Lasdun masterfully turns the screw.

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

A hugely affecting, moving read. I was heartbroken by the end, but adored every chapter

—— Image Magazine

Beautiful

—— Woman’s Way

Each section displays Ryan’s range as a writer... [he] writes with brilliant empathy.

—— Boston Globe

Exquisitely rendered, with raw anguish sublimated into lyrical prose.

—— Washington Post

Heartbreaking … Arguably the best of the new wave of Irish writers to have emerged over the last decade

—— Irish Mail on the Sunday, Books of the Year

Ryan has the gift of ventriloquism - he inhabits his fictional creations thoroughly, enveloping you in their worlds

—— Sunday Business Post, Books of the Year

Sublime

—— Irish Independent, Books of the Year

From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan made me laugh and cry and forced me to look strangers in the eye

—— Liz Nugent , Irish Times, Books of the Year

Beautifully bleak and characterised by his remarkable ability to write about grief and common humanities.

—— Diarmaid Ferriter , Irish Times, Books of the Year

Beautiful, compassionate

—— Sinéad Crowley , RTÉ Culture, Best Books of 2018

Superlatives wouldn’t do for describing From a Low and Quiet Sea … understated, and gloriously heart rendering

—— Hot Press, Books of the Year

Strout turns her clear, incisive gaze on the intricacies and betrayals of small town life

—— Maggie O'Farrell

Anything is Possible is predictably great because it's written by Elizabeth Strout, and brilliantly unpredictable - because it is written by Elizabeth Strout

—— Roddy Doyle
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