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Seven: 'Endlessly inventive' The Times
'What a writer.' ALI SMITH
'One of the most brilliant British writers working today.' Spectator
Who decides the rules of the games we play?
In August 2007, or thereabouts, a young philosopher leaves Oslo, heading for Greece, on a mission to find Theodoros Apostolakis, the head of the Society of Lost Things. Fortunately, Apostolakis isn't lost, but everything else ancient libraries, entire civilisations, priceless books and a beautiful box, once used to play the world-famous game of Seven. The hunt for this small thing, among the countless lost things, becomes an absurdist quest through time and from the earliest human societies to the advent of AI.
Told, shared and mythologised by our narrator, along with a wild cast of dreamers, philosophers, poets, rebels and optimists, Seven is an extraordinary, uplifting journey through an ever darkening world.
'One of the most brilliant British writers working today.' Spectator
Who decides the rules of the games we play?
In August 2007, or thereabouts, a young philosopher leaves Oslo, heading for Greece, on a mission to find Theodoros Apostolakis, the head of the Society of Lost Things. Fortunately, Apostolakis isn't lost, but everything else ancient libraries, entire civilisations, priceless books and a beautiful box, once used to play the world-famous game of Seven. The hunt for this small thing, among the countless lost things, becomes an absurdist quest through time and from the earliest human societies to the advent of AI.
Told, shared and mythologised by our narrator, along with a wild cast of dreamers, philosophers, poets, rebels and optimists, Seven is an extraordinary, uplifting journey through an ever darkening world.
282 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 15, 2026
About the author
Joanna Kavenna
20 books162 followersJoanna Kavenna is a prize-winning British novelist and travel writer.
Kavenna spent her childhood in Suffolk and the Midlands as well as various other parts of Britain. She has also lived in the United States, France, Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic States.
These travels led to her first book, The Ice Museum, which was published in 2005. It was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award in that year, and the Ondaatje Prize, and the Dolman Best Travel Book Award in 2006. Described by the The New York Review of Books as "illuminating and consequential," it combines history, travel, literary criticism and first-person narrative, as the author journeys through Scotland, Norway, Iceland, the Baltic and Greenland. Along the way, Kavenna investigates various myths and travellers' yarns about the northerly regions, focusing particularly on the ancient Greek story of Thule, the last land in the North. Before The Ice Museum she had written several novels that remain unpublished.
Kavenna has held writing fellowships at St Antony's College, Oxford and St John's College, Cambridge. She is currently the writer-in-residence at St Peter's College, Oxford. Themes of the country versus the city, the relationship between self and place, and the plight of the individual in hyper-capitalist society recur through Kavenna's novels and in some of her journalism.
She has written for The New Yorker, The Huffington Post, The London Review of Books, The Guardian, The Observer, The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times, among other publications.
Kavenna is now based in the Duddon Valley, Cumbria and has a partner and two young children.
Kavenna spent her childhood in Suffolk and the Midlands as well as various other parts of Britain. She has also lived in the United States, France, Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic States.
These travels led to her first book, The Ice Museum, which was published in 2005. It was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award in that year, and the Ondaatje Prize, and the Dolman Best Travel Book Award in 2006. Described by the The New York Review of Books as "illuminating and consequential," it combines history, travel, literary criticism and first-person narrative, as the author journeys through Scotland, Norway, Iceland, the Baltic and Greenland. Along the way, Kavenna investigates various myths and travellers' yarns about the northerly regions, focusing particularly on the ancient Greek story of Thule, the last land in the North. Before The Ice Museum she had written several novels that remain unpublished.
Kavenna has held writing fellowships at St Antony's College, Oxford and St John's College, Cambridge. She is currently the writer-in-residence at St Peter's College, Oxford. Themes of the country versus the city, the relationship between self and place, and the plight of the individual in hyper-capitalist society recur through Kavenna's novels and in some of her journalism.
She has written for The New Yorker, The Huffington Post, The London Review of Books, The Guardian, The Observer, The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times, among other publications.
Kavenna is now based in the Duddon Valley, Cumbria and has a partner and two young children.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
July 2, 2026
I played Hikaru Rules a few times. They were good value if you were up at 3 a.m. and couldn't sleep, because each game was roughly twice as long. Also the rules of there and back again were more forgiving. In Nachtnebel Rules, you could get flamed by a couple of Dragons and it was game over, effectively. With Hikaru Rules you had more time to get tangled and equally more time to get disentangled.
Joanna Kavenna's Seven, set in the mid-late 2000s, is narrated by a young philosopher, whose name is never revealed and whose gender remains ambigious in the novel.
As the novel opens they are working for Alda Jónsdóttir, a rather volatile Icelandic Box Philosopher. living in Oslo and writing a book on Thinking Outside the Box About Thinking Outside of the Box.
Box Philosophy is fundamentally about boxes, as you might expect. These boxes are not necessarily physical boxes. They can be, but they don't have to be. The boxes can be real or unreal, metaphorical or physical. That doesn't matter so much. Box Philosophy is the study of categories, the ways we organise reality into groups and sets. The ways we end up thinking inside the box, even when we are trying to think outside the box. It's also about physical boxes, at times. But not at all times. I was lucky to get involved with Box Philosophy because it allowed me to get out of my box, both literally and metaphorically. I met some quite startling people and also I got to travel around, mostly by bus.
The narrator acts as Alda's field researcher, and her travels in particular lead her to encounter two key people in an overly rich cast of characters:
Theódoros Apostolakis: now living on the Greek island of Hydra poet, but originally from Crete. He is a (not very good) dentist but also founder of the Society of Lost Things, and indeed attempting, via an Orhanesque museum and a large catalogue, the impossible task of listing everything - and everyone - who is lost. The everyone key, because during WW2, Theódoros's entire family were wiped out by the Nazis in the Kandanos Massacre
Eleni Hikaru Jones, daughter of 'Moose' Jones, a New Zealand soldier who was stationed in Crete during WW2, stranded after the German invasion, and who was helped to escape by Theódoros, then a child, and his sister Eleni (killed a few days later). Theódoros's sister gave Moose a gift of a Seven board (see below), and although the board itself was lost in Moose's subsquent wartime escapades (the most crucial of the 'lost things') he passed on his love of the game to his daughter, as well as Theódoros's sister's name, and Eleni Hikaru Jones subsequently became a multiple world champion.
And the game of Seven (invented by Kavenna for the novel) is the one thing that unites all the character, a game played in antiquity as archaelogical findings of boards demonstrate, but whose modern rules were defined - or perhaps divined - in the early 20th century by the finder of one of the first ancient boards, Robert Nachtnebel (the coincidence of his name to Hitler's 1941 directive directing terror against partisans and resistance fighters later causes his role in the game's history to be temporarily cancelled).
Seven is played on beautifully carved boxes marked with the spiral playing board - see here and here for a board made for Kavenna by artist Abigail Reynolds - and with rules that are perhaps best described as an elaborate version of Ludo, with extra pieces of Angels and Demons used by both players to add to the complexity.
Eleni Hikaru Jones is retired, and the current world champion is Ashok Deo, his Poulidoresque permanently defeated opponent, Indrek Laar, but when Laar helps build an AI tool to play the game, somewhat to his - and the Seven world's - horror it succeeds where he fails and defeats Deo, leavin the latter, rather like Go Player 이세돌, to immediately retire.
I initially felt the existence of 'world championships' in what seems more of a board game of chance might be a little over the top until I remembered that 40 years ago I attended the Tiddlywinks World Championship (albeit that is a game of considerable physical skill as well as detailed tactics) - Larry Khan the Ashok Deo of the sport.
This is an odd novel - fun to read although at times a little self-indulgent in the detailed plot lines; the philosophy feels a bit Sophie's Choice; and the narrative seems largely very tongue in cheek, making the juxtaposition of real-life tragedies such as in Crete, the somewhat jarring.
3.5 stars rounded to 3.
Joanna Kavenna's Seven, set in the mid-late 2000s, is narrated by a young philosopher, whose name is never revealed and whose gender remains ambigious in the novel.
As the novel opens they are working for Alda Jónsdóttir, a rather volatile Icelandic Box Philosopher. living in Oslo and writing a book on Thinking Outside the Box About Thinking Outside of the Box.
Box Philosophy is fundamentally about boxes, as you might expect. These boxes are not necessarily physical boxes. They can be, but they don't have to be. The boxes can be real or unreal, metaphorical or physical. That doesn't matter so much. Box Philosophy is the study of categories, the ways we organise reality into groups and sets. The ways we end up thinking inside the box, even when we are trying to think outside the box. It's also about physical boxes, at times. But not at all times. I was lucky to get involved with Box Philosophy because it allowed me to get out of my box, both literally and metaphorically. I met some quite startling people and also I got to travel around, mostly by bus.
The narrator acts as Alda's field researcher, and her travels in particular lead her to encounter two key people in an overly rich cast of characters:
Theódoros Apostolakis: now living on the Greek island of Hydra poet, but originally from Crete. He is a (not very good) dentist but also founder of the Society of Lost Things, and indeed attempting, via an Orhanesque museum and a large catalogue, the impossible task of listing everything - and everyone - who is lost. The everyone key, because during WW2, Theódoros's entire family were wiped out by the Nazis in the Kandanos Massacre
Eleni Hikaru Jones, daughter of 'Moose' Jones, a New Zealand soldier who was stationed in Crete during WW2, stranded after the German invasion, and who was helped to escape by Theódoros, then a child, and his sister Eleni (killed a few days later). Theódoros's sister gave Moose a gift of a Seven board (see below), and although the board itself was lost in Moose's subsquent wartime escapades (the most crucial of the 'lost things') he passed on his love of the game to his daughter, as well as Theódoros's sister's name, and Eleni Hikaru Jones subsequently became a multiple world champion.
And the game of Seven (invented by Kavenna for the novel) is the one thing that unites all the character, a game played in antiquity as archaelogical findings of boards demonstrate, but whose modern rules were defined - or perhaps divined - in the early 20th century by the finder of one of the first ancient boards, Robert Nachtnebel (the coincidence of his name to Hitler's 1941 directive directing terror against partisans and resistance fighters later causes his role in the game's history to be temporarily cancelled).
Seven is played on beautifully carved boxes marked with the spiral playing board - see here and here for a board made for Kavenna by artist Abigail Reynolds - and with rules that are perhaps best described as an elaborate version of Ludo, with extra pieces of Angels and Demons used by both players to add to the complexity.
Eleni Hikaru Jones is retired, and the current world champion is Ashok Deo, his Poulidoresque permanently defeated opponent, Indrek Laar, but when Laar helps build an AI tool to play the game, somewhat to his - and the Seven world's - horror it succeeds where he fails and defeats Deo, leavin the latter, rather like Go Player 이세돌, to immediately retire.
I initially felt the existence of 'world championships' in what seems more of a board game of chance might be a little over the top until I remembered that 40 years ago I attended the Tiddlywinks World Championship (albeit that is a game of considerable physical skill as well as detailed tactics) - Larry Khan the Ashok Deo of the sport.
This is an odd novel - fun to read although at times a little self-indulgent in the detailed plot lines; the philosophy feels a bit Sophie's Choice; and the narrative seems largely very tongue in cheek, making the juxtaposition of real-life tragedies such as in Crete, the somewhat jarring.
3.5 stars rounded to 3.
February 10, 2026
Kavenna is an original, offbeat writer. I loved the philosophical and poetic tone of A Field Guide to Reality and found Zed very funny, a genuinely good satire on generative AI published in 2019. Looking at their average goodreads ratings, I seem to have appreciated both more than most. Seven is completely different again, although it shares an academic milieu with A Field Guide to Reality. The narrative follows an unnamed, ungendered, and unassuming protagonist sent on a series of quests in the ostensible name of research. These journeys across Europe are linked to an ancient game named Seven. Boards and counters for this game have been uncovered by archaeologists. The rules are lost in history, but several versions have been reinvented and become popular. In this proximate alternate universe, the game of Seven has a status akin to chess. There are famous world champions, as well as many enthusiastic amateurs and attempts at training AI to play. The narrators plays and recounts many games of Seven as the plot unfolds.
Seven is a novel of atmosphere and contemplation rather than coherent plot. It makes fun of the chaos of academia, as well as venturing into more existential territory. I assumed that the plot's structure was intended to be similar to a game of Seven and the narrator a counter being moved around the board by their employers, friends, and academic mentors (groups which overlap). I wondered whether a more recent reading of Hesse's The Glass Bead Game would have given me insight into the meaning of Seven the game. I liked this game as a conceit and found the eccentric individuals who cared about intriguing. Kavenna's writing is pleasing to read, even without the same profundity as A Field Guide to Reality or sharp satire as Zed. Ultimately, though, the most significant impact of Seven was it got the Fever Ray song of the same name stuck in my head for several days. Thus I give three stars, because Kavenna has written novels that I found much stranger and more meaningful. If you found A Field Guide to Reality and Zed too peculiar, perhaps you might appreciate it more.
Seven is a novel of atmosphere and contemplation rather than coherent plot. It makes fun of the chaos of academia, as well as venturing into more existential territory. I assumed that the plot's structure was intended to be similar to a game of Seven and the narrator a counter being moved around the board by their employers, friends, and academic mentors (groups which overlap). I wondered whether a more recent reading of Hesse's The Glass Bead Game would have given me insight into the meaning of Seven the game. I liked this game as a conceit and found the eccentric individuals who cared about intriguing. Kavenna's writing is pleasing to read, even without the same profundity as A Field Guide to Reality or sharp satire as Zed. Ultimately, though, the most significant impact of Seven was it got the Fever Ray song of the same name stuck in my head for several days. Thus I give three stars, because Kavenna has written novels that I found much stranger and more meaningful. If you found A Field Guide to Reality and Zed too peculiar, perhaps you might appreciate it more.
February 4, 2026
I don't know if it's a nascent manic epsiode but this book SPOKE to me. It is also just a genuinely brilliant piece of fiction, insanity aside. I love the kind of Nordic absurdist humour she employs here, very reminiscent of Dorthe Nors, Ariane Koch. It's done brilliantly. I will probably never forget the dinner party scene with Alda Jondsdottir's magnificent salmon dish and the terrible incident that leads to it being filled with shattered glass - a lot of the novel felt like a Bunuel film or early Yorgos Lanthimos- very cinematic....people trapped in strange rooms having a terrible time, off their nut on drinks or drugs of some sort, both hilarious and agonising to witness. I loved every single one of these odd characters, and enjoyed the ambiguous gender idenity of the narrator. Box Philosophy! Thinking Outside the Box (about Thinking outside the box)! It's a very deep novel, despite the humour, about the games we are forced to play in life and as citizens; who makes the rules? games with rules impose constraints, but should you always live within the rules? We should question everything. and look hard. ESPECIALLY at AI.
Various threads of interest converged in this books for me, the Etruscans (Fufluns and the flower of life), grief rituals, the symbology of spirals, sacred geometry in general, lost things (the resort of the Lost Weekend), healing from trauma...
'People often speak about learning experiences and especially when you're young, there's a notion that virtually everything that happens should be interpreted in this sense. Let that be a learning experience to you! I hope you've learned your lesson! But it's true that I did learn two major things from the whole salmon-based fiasco. Firstly, names are often significant. A drink called Black Death is unlikely to be very good for you. Secondly, I hadn't needed to worry about everything I was so absurdly worried about, due to the law of unintended consequences. We can be stressing ourselves senseless about possible events, striving to avert them, but then everything is demolished by an unimagined and previously unimaginable event....Then we have to start all over again, striving and hoping.'
'Did you know,' said Eleni Hikaru Jones, 'that was the original meaning of the word 'trauma' for the Ancient Greeks? A wound so deep, it never heals.'
'Talenti said he often thought about Horace when he came to this coast, especially in the winter. You know, those lines, he said:
Don't ask, we never know...
whether Jupiter gives us more winters or this is the last one,
debilitating the Tyrrhenian Sea on opposing cliffs.
Be wise, and mix the wine, since time is short: limit that far-
reaching hope.
The envious moment is flying now, now...'
'you find spirals everyhwere in the ancient world. You can't move without hitting a spiral. The whirlpool, the Gordian knot. The cycles of time, the changing of the seasons. Birth, death, growth, reincarnation. You travel through the labyrinth to the source. Then the cycle continues.'
'for while they spoke of the Himalayas, the shifting seasons in this monumental valley, how Deo's father had spent many years at the top of Saraswati mountainm how Saraswati is the goddess of wisdom. Rishi asked earnestly, if Deo had any views on the Shape of the Universe theory, the spiral galaxies - but Deo said he'd heard nothing about this. 'Rule nothing out,' he said. Deo also spoke about the unalome...'I was pretty battered...said deo. 'Then I came here and perhaps because of the monastery nearby, or for other reasons, I kept thinking about this old symbol - of a spiral that unwinds. The path to freedom. The beginning is a spiral but then the path unwinds , slowly, and finally you are released...I liked this idea of unwinding, And the idea that the path may not be straight and may not always lead in the right direction.'
Various threads of interest converged in this books for me, the Etruscans (Fufluns and the flower of life), grief rituals, the symbology of spirals, sacred geometry in general, lost things (the resort of the Lost Weekend), healing from trauma...
'People often speak about learning experiences and especially when you're young, there's a notion that virtually everything that happens should be interpreted in this sense. Let that be a learning experience to you! I hope you've learned your lesson! But it's true that I did learn two major things from the whole salmon-based fiasco. Firstly, names are often significant. A drink called Black Death is unlikely to be very good for you. Secondly, I hadn't needed to worry about everything I was so absurdly worried about, due to the law of unintended consequences. We can be stressing ourselves senseless about possible events, striving to avert them, but then everything is demolished by an unimagined and previously unimaginable event....Then we have to start all over again, striving and hoping.'
'Did you know,' said Eleni Hikaru Jones, 'that was the original meaning of the word 'trauma' for the Ancient Greeks? A wound so deep, it never heals.'
'Talenti said he often thought about Horace when he came to this coast, especially in the winter. You know, those lines, he said:
Don't ask, we never know...
whether Jupiter gives us more winters or this is the last one,
debilitating the Tyrrhenian Sea on opposing cliffs.
Be wise, and mix the wine, since time is short: limit that far-
reaching hope.
The envious moment is flying now, now...'
'you find spirals everyhwere in the ancient world. You can't move without hitting a spiral. The whirlpool, the Gordian knot. The cycles of time, the changing of the seasons. Birth, death, growth, reincarnation. You travel through the labyrinth to the source. Then the cycle continues.'
'for while they spoke of the Himalayas, the shifting seasons in this monumental valley, how Deo's father had spent many years at the top of Saraswati mountainm how Saraswati is the goddess of wisdom. Rishi asked earnestly, if Deo had any views on the Shape of the Universe theory, the spiral galaxies - but Deo said he'd heard nothing about this. 'Rule nothing out,' he said. Deo also spoke about the unalome...'I was pretty battered...said deo. 'Then I came here and perhaps because of the monastery nearby, or for other reasons, I kept thinking about this old symbol - of a spiral that unwinds. The path to freedom. The beginning is a spiral but then the path unwinds , slowly, and finally you are released...I liked this idea of unwinding, And the idea that the path may not be straight and may not always lead in the right direction.'
February 1, 2026
Being gifted a book, having no preconception, and ending up totally absorbed by it is such fun! Seven is strange, playful, and philosophical book that wanders across Europe (and beyond) in search of the origins of a mysterious game, while questioning whether origins, rules, or answers are ever really the point.
Reading it soon after Clarke’s Piranesi felt oddly perfect. The two share a fascination with memory, symbols, liminality and narrative anonymity, and with how knowledge drifts and reshapes itself over time.
Kavenna’s writing moves beautifully between registers: soaring, abstract, and erudite one moment; grounded, intimate, and observational the next. At moments, it feels as if you’re on the verge of understanding everything, and then it slips away again.
What ultimately emerges is not a solution to the game, but something better: an exploration of how humans create rules, stories, and structures to understand the world, and how play itself is our oldest tool for thinking.
Absolutely loved it!
Reading it soon after Clarke’s Piranesi felt oddly perfect. The two share a fascination with memory, symbols, liminality and narrative anonymity, and with how knowledge drifts and reshapes itself over time.
Kavenna’s writing moves beautifully between registers: soaring, abstract, and erudite one moment; grounded, intimate, and observational the next. At moments, it feels as if you’re on the verge of understanding everything, and then it slips away again.
What ultimately emerges is not a solution to the game, but something better: an exploration of how humans create rules, stories, and structures to understand the world, and how play itself is our oldest tool for thinking.
Absolutely loved it!
February 11, 2026
Weird, funny, lovely. Makes you fall in love with the world anew.
July 11, 2026
“Don’t tell us we’re overthinking it. We know. And it’s insulting to think that you would think that we haven’t thought that we’re overthinking it. Like, we don’t need your underthinking thoughts.” - Gary Simons, aka this guy I saw on TikTok
“Remember when The Truman Show came out? And everyone freaked out about the idea of being filmed for a reality show without knowing it? Was it just me or was that the most boring movie ever because I thought of that concept as a child and have been living since then as if my whole life and my every move is being scrutinized and critiqued?” - Me
If you are an overthinker at the mitochondrial level, do I have the book for you! Seven by Joanna Kavenna is both an overthinker’s paradise and an overthinker’s isolation cell experiment. We have an unnamed, ungendered first person narrator (it drove me crazy so I choose a he/him Dave and just carried on) on the hunt for an ancient game that no one understands how to play. And then, let the hijinx ensue! (Wait, omg, am I using too many exclamation points? I know. And it’s insulting to think that you would think that I haven’t thought about the fact that I'm overthinking the punctuation rules. Let's move forward, shall we?)
Because some rules are dumb, like “don’t use too many emphatics” or “always bring wine to a dinner party.” Maybe they don’t drink wine! And people shouldn’t neglect their punctuation.
Then again, maybe we should get back in the boxes. Sometimes we do need structure, honestly, if structure makes sense. When we sit there, we can box in, look at what’s in front of us, appreciate the waves rolling in, the stars, the breeze, the beauty of it all, take a breath. And it can be a safe space to determine our own life rules: Avoid the bad stuff, embrace the good, participate in the dance, have the conversations, do the things, do them over and over until it’s done. Then we play again. 4.25 stars
Thanks to Faber & Faber, Joanna Kavenna (author), and Edelweiss for the digital review copy of Seven. Their generosity did not influence my review.
“Remember when The Truman Show came out? And everyone freaked out about the idea of being filmed for a reality show without knowing it? Was it just me or was that the most boring movie ever because I thought of that concept as a child and have been living since then as if my whole life and my every move is being scrutinized and critiqued?” - Me
If you are an overthinker at the mitochondrial level, do I have the book for you! Seven by Joanna Kavenna is both an overthinker’s paradise and an overthinker’s isolation cell experiment. We have an unnamed, ungendered first person narrator (it drove me crazy so I choose a he/him Dave and just carried on) on the hunt for an ancient game that no one understands how to play. And then, let the hijinx ensue! (Wait, omg, am I using too many exclamation points? I know. And it’s insulting to think that you would think that I haven’t thought about the fact that I'm overthinking the punctuation rules. Let's move forward, shall we?)
Because some rules are dumb, like “don’t use too many emphatics” or “always bring wine to a dinner party.” Maybe they don’t drink wine! And people shouldn’t neglect their punctuation.
Then again, maybe we should get back in the boxes. Sometimes we do need structure, honestly, if structure makes sense. When we sit there, we can box in, look at what’s in front of us, appreciate the waves rolling in, the stars, the breeze, the beauty of it all, take a breath. And it can be a safe space to determine our own life rules: Avoid the bad stuff, embrace the good, participate in the dance, have the conversations, do the things, do them over and over until it’s done. Then we play again. 4.25 stars
Thanks to Faber & Faber, Joanna Kavenna (author), and Edelweiss for the digital review copy of Seven. Their generosity did not influence my review.
January 26, 2026
Part comedy, part thriller. She had be at box philosophy. It’s also delightfully European with echoes of Hesse and Fowles, but with a lot more wit and fun.
February 22, 2026
Seven follows an unnamed narrator who is unceremoniously sacked from a philosophical institute in Oslo and then embarks on a meandering, semi-comic quest across Europe in search of a mysterious poet-dentist and the deeper meaning of an ancient board game called “Seven.” The game — obscure, possibly unknowable, and endlessly disputed — becomes a grand metaphor for life, thought, ego, systems, and just about everything else. Along the way there are academics, eccentrics, invented theories, travel detours, and a steady stream of intellectual riffs.
I did enjoy it in places. There are sharp lines and moments of genuine comic bite. Kavenna can certainly write, and when she allows the absurdity to breathe, it’s entertaining.
But I often felt as though I was being nudged in the ribs by the author. Look how clever this is. Look how knowingly strange. Maybe it was simply too clever for me, but more than once I had the distinct sense she was taking the mickey — not just with the philosophical establishment, but with the reader as well. The constant conceptual spiralling (very on brand for the game) began to feel less playful and more smug.
I admire the ambition. I’m less convinced by the execution. In the end it felt rather like the fictional board game itself: intricate, elaborate, possibly profound — and not especially fun to play.
I did enjoy it in places. There are sharp lines and moments of genuine comic bite. Kavenna can certainly write, and when she allows the absurdity to breathe, it’s entertaining.
But I often felt as though I was being nudged in the ribs by the author. Look how clever this is. Look how knowingly strange. Maybe it was simply too clever for me, but more than once I had the distinct sense she was taking the mickey — not just with the philosophical establishment, but with the reader as well. The constant conceptual spiralling (very on brand for the game) began to feel less playful and more smug.
I admire the ambition. I’m less convinced by the execution. In the end it felt rather like the fictional board game itself: intricate, elaborate, possibly profound — and not especially fun to play.
March 5, 2026
6 stars.
This book got me thinking and I will continue to think about it for quite a while. The mark of an excellent novel.
So much to say about it. I suppose in essence it is a story about how to live our lives. What rules do we follow? Whose rules do we follow? What happens when the rules change or are proven to be wrong or simply not enough? And what is out there? Infinity? Boxes where everything is contained and the contents of which can be explained and made sense of? Or both?
Although the novel was dealing with huge questions, it did so with enormous humour, the sort of humour where one nods sagely and knowingly and also the sort of humour where you just laugh. There is an awesome account of a dinner involving salmon which goes horribly wrong. One of my favourite descriptions was one of a very annoying group of people who Kavenna refers to as a 'Mad Max version of Midas' - 'Everything they touched immediately became apocalyptic.' Morten from AHA gets a name check which I loved - his appearance is so random but so perfect.
Kavenna explores the idea of translation (and context) throughout the novel - something I find fascinating. The way we translate idioms across cultures, even how words evolve over time and across countries. I am always getting students to look up the etymologies of words and observe the incredible journeys words or phrases have taken, sometimes inexplicably. I didn't know, for instance, that the word 'trauma' means 'a wound so deep it never heals'. Or at least it originally meant that. Perhaps we have tried to rewrite the meaning of this word over time.
I also found the novel very moving. It seemed to me to be about grief and passing things on down generations. Beautiful descriptions of loss, one of the central themes of the novel. One of the most exquisite and moving observations in the novel was this: 'How can you die when we haven't finished talking yet?' What a way to actually express what grief might mean to so many people, including me. Grief is so much about what could have been, as much as what was. Those conversations we never had.
Interestingly I have just finished 'The Count of Monte Cristo' and there are some curious overlaps. In the end, Dumas' novel is also really about grief and his conclusion is that those conversations continue even when someone has died. They are ongoing. It's a form of consolation after the chaos that is caused in his European adventure. (The unnamed narrator traverses more than just Europe in Kavenna's novel.) I am also rereading 'The Secret Commonwealth' by Pullman which explores the difficulties of resolving the two world views of logic v imagination. I felt this was a key idea explored in 'Seven' too.
And I should add that Kavenna's writing is stunning. Look at the last two paragraphs of the novel alone. (Which I won't quote because of spoilers.)
This book got me thinking and I will continue to think about it for quite a while. The mark of an excellent novel.
So much to say about it. I suppose in essence it is a story about how to live our lives. What rules do we follow? Whose rules do we follow? What happens when the rules change or are proven to be wrong or simply not enough? And what is out there? Infinity? Boxes where everything is contained and the contents of which can be explained and made sense of? Or both?
Although the novel was dealing with huge questions, it did so with enormous humour, the sort of humour where one nods sagely and knowingly and also the sort of humour where you just laugh. There is an awesome account of a dinner involving salmon which goes horribly wrong. One of my favourite descriptions was one of a very annoying group of people who Kavenna refers to as a 'Mad Max version of Midas' - 'Everything they touched immediately became apocalyptic.' Morten from AHA gets a name check which I loved - his appearance is so random but so perfect.
Kavenna explores the idea of translation (and context) throughout the novel - something I find fascinating. The way we translate idioms across cultures, even how words evolve over time and across countries. I am always getting students to look up the etymologies of words and observe the incredible journeys words or phrases have taken, sometimes inexplicably. I didn't know, for instance, that the word 'trauma' means 'a wound so deep it never heals'. Or at least it originally meant that. Perhaps we have tried to rewrite the meaning of this word over time.
I also found the novel very moving. It seemed to me to be about grief and passing things on down generations. Beautiful descriptions of loss, one of the central themes of the novel. One of the most exquisite and moving observations in the novel was this: 'How can you die when we haven't finished talking yet?' What a way to actually express what grief might mean to so many people, including me. Grief is so much about what could have been, as much as what was. Those conversations we never had.
Interestingly I have just finished 'The Count of Monte Cristo' and there are some curious overlaps. In the end, Dumas' novel is also really about grief and his conclusion is that those conversations continue even when someone has died. They are ongoing. It's a form of consolation after the chaos that is caused in his European adventure. (The unnamed narrator traverses more than just Europe in Kavenna's novel.) I am also rereading 'The Secret Commonwealth' by Pullman which explores the difficulties of resolving the two world views of logic v imagination. I felt this was a key idea explored in 'Seven' too.
And I should add that Kavenna's writing is stunning. Look at the last two paragraphs of the novel alone. (Which I won't quote because of spoilers.)
April 9, 2026
3.5 stars, rounding up.
This is a bit of a difficult book to review because it’s hard to say what it’s even about. It’s a journey like life itself, meandering, full of twists and turns, different paths and unexpected views.
The narrator remains unnamed and ungendered throughout. Since English requires pronouns and “they” sounds awkward to me, I’m using “he” based on context clues (wearing his father’s suit to a dinner party where he frets about doing everything right). He exists mostly as an observer who disappears in social situations, fired by his professor for being “too polite”, agreeing noncommittally instead of expressing opinions. He feels insignificant and alone, having internalized that his thoughts don’t matter to the point of not sharing much with the reader either and mostly observing.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it but I feel it was brilliant how the author is telling us everything about this character through what’s not there. By making him so blank and observational, she shows us someone who has erased themselves, who witnesses life rather than participates. The quest for lost things becomes, quietly, a quest for a lost self.
I loved the lifelike quality of the book, how characters had their own lives moving forward off-page, how nothing followed neat formulas. The narrator’s quiet affection for Apostolakis was deeply relatable, this lonely, invisible person finding someone who actually cares about him, even though I’m not sure if Apostolakis ever actually knew the narrator well or even if it was possible to.
I was also surprised by how much weight Estonia carried in this book. My homeland is rarely mentioned in international literature and Kavenna clearly did her research, I really appreciate that.
The unconventional structure won’t work for everyone. It requires going with the flow rather than expecting clear answers. But there’s something honest about how it mirrors life’s winding paths. Overall, a very quirky and interesting book which I definitely wouldn’t recommend as a crowd pleaser but I personally did enjoy it a lot.
This is a bit of a difficult book to review because it’s hard to say what it’s even about. It’s a journey like life itself, meandering, full of twists and turns, different paths and unexpected views.
The narrator remains unnamed and ungendered throughout. Since English requires pronouns and “they” sounds awkward to me, I’m using “he” based on context clues (wearing his father’s suit to a dinner party where he frets about doing everything right). He exists mostly as an observer who disappears in social situations, fired by his professor for being “too polite”, agreeing noncommittally instead of expressing opinions. He feels insignificant and alone, having internalized that his thoughts don’t matter to the point of not sharing much with the reader either and mostly observing.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it but I feel it was brilliant how the author is telling us everything about this character through what’s not there. By making him so blank and observational, she shows us someone who has erased themselves, who witnesses life rather than participates. The quest for lost things becomes, quietly, a quest for a lost self.
I loved the lifelike quality of the book, how characters had their own lives moving forward off-page, how nothing followed neat formulas. The narrator’s quiet affection for Apostolakis was deeply relatable, this lonely, invisible person finding someone who actually cares about him, even though I’m not sure if Apostolakis ever actually knew the narrator well or even if it was possible to.
I was also surprised by how much weight Estonia carried in this book. My homeland is rarely mentioned in international literature and Kavenna clearly did her research, I really appreciate that.
The unconventional structure won’t work for everyone. It requires going with the flow rather than expecting clear answers. But there’s something honest about how it mirrors life’s winding paths. Overall, a very quirky and interesting book which I definitely wouldn’t recommend as a crowd pleaser but I personally did enjoy it a lot.
April 4, 2026
A day after I’ve completed the novel, and after a while of pondering on it, I’m fascinated by how interesting and cleverly written this story is presented and conveyed.
Through meeting such a diverse array of self-assured, hypnotising yet unique characters going about their lives, who we experience through the contrasting personality of our narrator as he seemingly orbits these larger-than-life personalities throughout his travels. The characters we meet serve as an interesting juxtaposition with the board game called Seven they all play. The rules of Seven have been lost to the passage of time but as more boards are unearthed in different European cities we observe the irony that the more boards found, the less the purpose and rules of the game make sense and the harder it is to discern the singular truth, if there is one at all.
We also confront the idea that games are for fun, and the search for the truth in this aspect may be defeating the whole purpose of play itself if we keep getting mired in the technicalities of it all which mirrors the reality of life itself.
For me, as I’ve never read fiction of this flavour before, nor any works of the philosophy giants, this is what I’ve taken from the story and the ever-present themes and symbolism of time, space, loss, formlessness, subjectivity and consciousness throughout.
This philosophy, take-away, moral of the story or whatever you may wish to call it I’d say is more eloquently and succinctly summarised by Kavenna in my favourite passage from the novel -
“Without being omniscient, it was impossible to win or lose at this particular game - the game of discerning the shape of the universe. But everyone was playing anyway”
Through meeting such a diverse array of self-assured, hypnotising yet unique characters going about their lives, who we experience through the contrasting personality of our narrator as he seemingly orbits these larger-than-life personalities throughout his travels. The characters we meet serve as an interesting juxtaposition with the board game called Seven they all play. The rules of Seven have been lost to the passage of time but as more boards are unearthed in different European cities we observe the irony that the more boards found, the less the purpose and rules of the game make sense and the harder it is to discern the singular truth, if there is one at all.
We also confront the idea that games are for fun, and the search for the truth in this aspect may be defeating the whole purpose of play itself if we keep getting mired in the technicalities of it all which mirrors the reality of life itself.
For me, as I’ve never read fiction of this flavour before, nor any works of the philosophy giants, this is what I’ve taken from the story and the ever-present themes and symbolism of time, space, loss, formlessness, subjectivity and consciousness throughout.
This philosophy, take-away, moral of the story or whatever you may wish to call it I’d say is more eloquently and succinctly summarised by Kavenna in my favourite passage from the novel -
“Without being omniscient, it was impossible to win or lose at this particular game - the game of discerning the shape of the universe. But everyone was playing anyway”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 20, 2026
A novel of ideas, centred around a board game with a hidden history that goes all the way back to the ancient Mediterranean; a tragi-comic journey around Europe's bloody history and its hopeful if confused present.
At one point I noted "Is this 'The Magus' if the Fowles novel wasn't so massively up itself?" Well, maybe it is, with its charismatic Greek characters, labyrinths of many kinds, dark intimations of WW2 atrocities, and mind games (it's all about games, or all about the game).
I loved how European it was, moving between Greece and Scandinavia, France and Spain; the USA barely exists. Clouds on the horizon are an incoming AI that plays the titular game better than any human, but can it be beaten? And is that the real issue? Kasparov beaten by Deep Blue just affirmed that he was the best human player.
I also liked the narrator character and that as far as I could tell we never find out whether they're male or female. I'm tending towards female but I can imagine being them.
The game itself is likely based on the ancient Egyptian game of Mehen, and at the back of my mind was also Hesse's world-defining Glass Bead Game. In Seven's world the game gets outside the box and becomes a metaphor (which means 'transport,' or 'journey' and it's certainly that) for the universe itself.
At one point I noted "Is this 'The Magus' if the Fowles novel wasn't so massively up itself?" Well, maybe it is, with its charismatic Greek characters, labyrinths of many kinds, dark intimations of WW2 atrocities, and mind games (it's all about games, or all about the game).
I loved how European it was, moving between Greece and Scandinavia, France and Spain; the USA barely exists. Clouds on the horizon are an incoming AI that plays the titular game better than any human, but can it be beaten? And is that the real issue? Kasparov beaten by Deep Blue just affirmed that he was the best human player.
I also liked the narrator character and that as far as I could tell we never find out whether they're male or female. I'm tending towards female but I can imagine being them.
The game itself is likely based on the ancient Egyptian game of Mehen, and at the back of my mind was also Hesse's world-defining Glass Bead Game. In Seven's world the game gets outside the box and becomes a metaphor (which means 'transport,' or 'journey' and it's certainly that) for the universe itself.
May 4, 2026
I don't know what to think about this book. It bounced along alright, it's funny and engaging in bits, I liked the idea of the game, but it's so open-ended that it could have gone on for ever like a shaggy dog story. I don't have a philosophical mind, so playing with words and abstract ideas or turning them into characters gets rather tiring after a while. However: it may be the sort of book you think about in the days to come, don't know yet. I may be giving myself three stars for being such a plonker.
July 21, 2026
I don't know... The book was pleasant to read, not too long. Some mildly interesting characters, about whom we learn very little. Much bus riding across Europe. A probably newly made-up (ancient) board game, whose rules we may or may not know. Occasional episodes of food and drink at various social occasions. A bunch of philosophers and philosopher-adjacents who can't quite ever reach any conclusions.
Does all this add up to anything? ... Maybe?
Does all this add up to anything? ... Maybe?
Want to Read
July 7, 2026As highlighted in our first half preview: The latest novel from British author Kavenna, whose Zed was a Lit Hub favorite, concerns a philosopher seeking an ancient game box in Greece—but “the hunt for this small thing, among the countless lost things, becomes an absurdist quest through time and space: from the earliest human societies to the advent of AI.” Sounds like fun. –ET
March 19, 2026
A fascinating read
An unexpected gem. It might take you a while to work out what's happening due to the fast pacing, but you will be gripped and hooked from the start. Highly recommend.
An unexpected gem. It might take you a while to work out what's happening due to the fast pacing, but you will be gripped and hooked from the start. Highly recommend.
April 12, 2026
Despite thoroughly enjoying two previous Kavenna books, giving both 4 stars, I really could not get into this novel at all. It has several threads which barely mesh. I spent the whole novel waiting for something to happen, but it never did.
April 26, 2026
I can’t give it 3.5 but that’s what I feel. I might have to reread this one again as I feel I didn’t get all of it. But I enjoyed the traveling and the globetrotting, all the crazy characters, and the characters who I believed could have been real life people being name dropped
June 13, 2026
Breathless, lucid, dazed and confused and truly delighted; a treat for everyone who devours the avant-garde genre whole, and who loves the odd, the philosophical, and the experimental. A true satire every comedian would love and should read 🤍
July 19, 2026
A unique and very entertaining writing style. I loved the historical references mixed with fiction. On more than one occasion I had to backtrack through the book to see if I'd missed the explanation as to what TOTBATOTB meant.
March 14, 2026
Excellent, strange novel. Reminded me of Ishiguro's Unconsoled, except that it's readable and enjoyable. Joanna Kavenna is my new favourite writer 😍
May 23, 2026
4.5, rounded up. I really enjoyed this, especially the section in Italy.
June 15, 2026
Enjoyed but it very much petered out towards the end
April 30, 2026
Certainly food for thought.
July 24, 2026
Seven is a refreshing, light spritz. It’s an immensely fun and quirky adventure, with a host of absurd moments and characters. Our unnamed protagonist trots across scenic locations trying to learn more about the historical game ‘Seven’, in a play on academia and philosophy.
Some might be put off but it’s informal prose and blocky structure, but Kavenna’s literary brilliance catches you in her succinct, eloquent descriptions (like describing orange smoke as seeing a sunset underwater). She creates a real atmosphere of locations and personalities, but also adds heart into both (such as the Nazi occupation of Crete, and some characters’ personal tragedies). Seven as a fictional game is also well crafted, with its own history, celebrity and fans, but also existential stakes.
If you can handle the quirk, it’s a fun, short book that staves off self-indulgence while also offering something genuinely comforting. A great Summer read.
7/10
Some might be put off but it’s informal prose and blocky structure, but Kavenna’s literary brilliance catches you in her succinct, eloquent descriptions (like describing orange smoke as seeing a sunset underwater). She creates a real atmosphere of locations and personalities, but also adds heart into both (such as the Nazi occupation of Crete, and some characters’ personal tragedies). Seven as a fictional game is also well crafted, with its own history, celebrity and fans, but also existential stakes.
If you can handle the quirk, it’s a fun, short book that staves off self-indulgence while also offering something genuinely comforting. A great Summer read.
7/10
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