I'm not sure how to review this. I don't know if I enjoyed it more or less than Reservoir 13, but I know I didn't particularly enjoy that one. The writing style is odd and it felt like hard work to engage with it. I don't think I'll read anything more from McGregor.

I enjoyed this book when I read it, however I did not get to submit full review in time as unfortunately I lost my devices when my house was burgled and it took me a long time to replace my belongings and just get back on track. I have an ereader again (and a laptop, although I am not reactivating my blog and have started a bookstagram instead) and I hope to review again in the future.

Having read and absolutely loved Reservoir 13, I expected to feel the same way about The Reservoir Tapes. Somehow though, I just didn't. It may have added greater flesh to the centre point character Becky Shaw but this felt rather superfluous. The point of the lost girl was that she was lost, unknown and unknowable. McGregor left gaps for the reader to fill for themselves. The wider cast of characters were all types that could be easily recognised, particularly by anyone who has ever lived in a village. Here, Rebecca Shaw takes centre stage and becomes an almost occult figure. Her disappearance was a question mark but here becomes a mystery. Honestly, The Reservoir Tapes feels like the deleted scenes which should have stayed on the cutting room floor. I could already guess at Claire's frustrations, that Liam felt pushed out by his peers, that Jess Hunter had dissatisfactions of her own. It felt underwhelming to have these points pointed out. Even the greater depth added to the Shaw parents didn't sit right. It took away the suspicion around Rebecca's father and also failed to quite marry up with the events around the reconstruction. McGregor's writing is as always poignant and beautiful but the tapes themselves feel unnecessary.

If I had come to this fresh, without having read Reservoir 13 first, I might have considered it a mystery. I would probably have thought I was invited to guess what happened to Becky from clues in each of the stories and character studies. Certainly it does fill in some of the gaps in Reservoir 13 and sheds light on some characters’ motivations so I feel I could take an educated guess to Becky’s fate now. But that wasn’t my main consideration when I read Reservoir 13 and still isn’t. The Reservoir Tapes complements my reading of Reservoir 13 but lacks some of the aspects I so loved in the first book - the cycle and rhythm of nature in particular. I very much enjoyed the variety of voices and styles of reporting/narration, my favourites being the Ginny, Irene and Charlotte chapters. An original concept that I’d recommend highly, but it will certainly have most impact for those who have already enjoyed Reservoir 13.

Love Jon McGregor as a writer as his books seem to take you on a journey of their own and allow you to wallow in our own thought streams.
I read Reservoir 13 when it was first published and really enjoyed it. To make sense of 'Tapes' you need to have read '13'.
'Tapes' gives the reader more background information on the characters introduced in '13'. Each chapter has its own voice and character and although short, the characters are brought to life.
Now I have to re-read Reservoir 13 which is not a chore!

This didn't answer my questions - it raised more. There's so much scope to explore this story, and this was a fun diversion for fans of the original.

I need this before Reservoir 13 and initially I preferred it - for its gaps and the space it gave the reader. The narrative control and historical sweep of the larger novel seemed much less appealing to me. However it did make me go back and read sections of The Reservoir Tapes again and realise that the interplay between Reservoir 13's overview and the fragmentary tapes adds to both books and makes them a remarkable achievement. So the bottom line is you need to read both.

I am glad i was advised to read this after Reservoir 13. I think it helped to know the village and the mystery beforehand. It was more dynamic than its parent book and i read it very quickly. So many back stories came out which we could not possibly have imagined in Reservoir 13, so much about Becky too. It changed my mind about the likley mystery. I would have liked more about other characters but it was very revealing, well written and a fascinating insight into a community we thought we knew. All in all a clever companion piece, but i would not have enjoyed it as much if i had read this one first .

I loved Reservoir 13, such beautiful writing and this was a perfect companion to that book. I also listened to it on Radio 4. Highly recommend this author.

I absolutely loved Reservoir 13 and this is a wonderful little companion read. I felt genuine sadness at having to leave the fascinating little village community behind when I finished Reservoir 13 and as such I was delighted to find I could delve further into the heart of it in this short but engrossing little book.
The incredible control and style that Jon McGregor showed in creating Reservoir 13 remains in full force here making for a book unlike the vast majority of other material out there. McGregor is a unique talent and this book is just another gem to add to his collection. Brilliant.

The Reservoir Tapes is somewhat enigmatic in that it offers insight without conclusion. One certainly couldn’t call it a tome, however the vignette it offers on characters within village life is certainly one I recognise. I liked the suspicion one village had for another. Reminded me of Cider with Rosie. Becky the mischievous teenager goes missing, we never fully understand what happened, although it probably has a lot to do with her parents imminent separation. Possibly a teenager’s way of punishing them. If you have ever lived in a village, then you’ll probably get more out of the story and bearing in mind it’s a brief work you need to extract maximum value.

This book needs to be read along with Reservoir 13. It does not work as a stand alone. The snippets of people's lives are interesting but there needs to be more to this book to make it a better read.

Sorry this one was not for me. It left me wanting more out of it and had no ending to speak of. Thanks for the chance to review it from Netgalley and the publisher.

An excellent companion to the superb "Reservoir 13", "The Reservoir Tapes" compiles a series of first person accounts of events leading up to and around the disappearance of Becky Shaw.
Originally conceived as a series of Radio 4 plays, these transcripts work equally well in print, shedding slivers of new light on the case, and adding pieces to an ultimately incomplete puzzle.
The accounts add more depth to the characters you meet in "Reservoir 13", the seemingly normal village inhabitants whose lives are forever touched by Becky's disappearance. Behind closed doors, life isn't always as simple as it may at first appear.
McGregor really is at the top of his game at the moment. I can't wait to read what he pens next.

First there was Reservoir 13, Jon McGregor's highly acclaimed 2017 novel in which a teenage girl on holiday with her family goes missing. Eight months later we have The Reservoir Tapes, a companion work, offering insights into the events leading up to Becky Shaw's perplexing disappearance.

Set in a rural village in England's Peak District - an upland area at the southern end of the Pennines - The Reservoir Tapes was first aired on BBC Radio 4 as a specially commissioned short fiction series (read by Neil Dudgeon), and has now been published as a volume of fifteen 'prequel' stories.

McGregor is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham, where he also edits the in-house literary journal, The Letters Page . Born in Bermuda in 1976, he grew up in Norfolk before moving to Nottingham, where, in 2002, he wrote the first of his four novels, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, while living on a narrowboat. He went on to win the IMPAC Dublin Literature Prize, Betty Trask Prize, and Somerset Maugham Award, and has twice been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

He now gives us the opportunity to scrutinize the thoughts and actions of individual villagers associated with the Reservoir 13 investigation, looking back at events in their lives and focusing on their precise memories of the girl. He is a perspicacious observer of ordinary folk – in this case an old quarry worker, a cleaner, a young wife, park rangers, the local butcher, a newspaper delivery lad, an adolescent boy, a journalist, a prostitute and several others - giving us a tantalizing coup d'œil of a community with its own tale to tell.

McGregor is equally attentive of the surrounding wildlife and writes with exactitude of a deep, unstable quarry reclaimed by the natural world. A quarry at the very centre of this mystery. He leaves us wanting more.

A short but perfectly formed accompaniment to my favourite book of the last 12 months, The short stories provide context and fleshing out of characters and events prior to the Reservoir 13, and dipping back into this world was a treat.

I can’t imagine it would stand so effectively in isolation, so that’s a warning rather than a criticism!

Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 was longlisted for the Booker, and is appearing on several “end of year” lists as one of “the books of 2017”. It deals with the disappearance of a teenager holidaying in a fictional village in the Peak District and its chapters spread over the 13 years following the incident. Following the novel’s success, BBC Radio 4 commissioned a set of fifteen short stories which are currently being broadcast and will be published in one volume. “The Reservoir Tapes” has been desribed as a “prequel” to the novel since it is set in the same community, with each of the chapters introducing us to a particular character with some link to the events described in the main novel.

Most of the reviews I read seem to be written by readers who enjoyed Reservoir 13 and were eager to revisit the world of the novel. Generally, the comments seem to be positive but raise doubts as to whether this collection of stories can be fully appreciated as a free-standing work. In my case, I have yet to read the novel but, in the meantime, I have greatly enjoyed this collection. Perhaps, rather than short stories, the pieces within The Reservoir Tapes are best considered as character vignettes – significantly, each chapter title gives us the name of the its protagonist. McGregor deftly differentiates between the characters through subtle changes in narrative voice and approach and yet, the more we read, the more we become aware of a web of connections between these disparate (and some desperate) characters.

Most of the chapters evoke a sense of danger and menace, and yet there is often also an underlying streak of dark humour. The stories are also minimalist in the best sense of the word – one gets the sense that no word is out of place, and no incident, however minor it may seem, is mere padding. In other words, this volume might be slim, but hardly slight.

I really enjoyed Reservoir 13 and this was an ideal companion. Each story was very spare but McGregor's genius is in making each word count and in giving the reader an almost voyeuristic glimpse into the character's lives - good and bad.

Reservoir 13 was one of the best books I read this year. Intimate and gossipy, yet somehow keeping its distance, it poked its nose into a community and watched its reactions to the disappearance of a young girl.

The Reservoir Tapes is a series of short stories, or vignettes, that takes us into the lives of the various characters from Reservoir 13 before the girl went missing. Becky was no innocent, it seems, and was determined to go her own way. The Tapes (which were read out on Radio 4) show us how some of the village's residents reacted to her, and hint at some of the possible ways she could have gone missing.

Just as compelling as the novel but best to read Reservoir 13 first.