Our Book of the Week this week may have just won the 2018 Man Booker Prize, but it also happens to be a very good book. 
Milkman by Anna Burns (published by Faber & Faber), apparently set in Belfast during the Troubles, is a sharp portrait of structures of conformity within a divided and traumatised society - and a remarkably enjoyable book to read. 
>> Read Thomas's review. 
>> "Incredibly original." 
>>Trading blows: on the populist assault on Milkman. 
>> "Completely stonked."
>> [Confused.]
>> The Man Booker judges' citation: "The language of Anna Burns’ Milkman is simply marvellous; beginning with the distinctive and consistently realised voice of the funny, resilient, astute, plain-spoken, first-person protagonist. From the opening page her words pull us into the daily violence of her world — threats of murder, people killed by state hit squads — while responding to the everyday realities of her life as a young woman, negotiating a way between the demands of family, friends and lovers in an unsettled time. The novel delineates brilliantly the power of gossip and social pressure in a tight-knit community, and shows how both rumour and political loyalties can be put in the service of a relentless campaign of individual sexual harassment. Burns draws on the experience of Northern Ireland during the Troubles to portray a world that allows individuals to abuse the power granted by a community to those who resist the state on their behalf. Yet this is never a novel about just one place or time. The local is in service to an exploration of the universal experience of societies in crisis."