December 16, 2021 A Shiny Merry Christmas From Annabel and Harriet After a tumultuous 2020, what with lockdown, accidentally deleting Shiny New Books and having to rebuild it totally from scratch…
December 14, 2021 Skylark by Alice O’Keefe Review by Max Dunbar The Arrow of Hope Dorothy Parker’s ‘Unfortunate Coincidence’ goes like this: By the time you swear you’re his,Shivering and sighing,And…
December 14, 2021 Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs Reviewed by Harriet This delightful novel is part of the latest batch of the British Library Women Writers series. I’ve reviewed a few of…
December 9, 2021 Hey Hi Hello: Five decades of Pop Culture from Britain’s Broadcasting DJ Pioneer by Annie Nightingale Review by Liz Dexter Nightingale was the first female DJ on Radio One, having been a journalist and live TV presenter before then and…
December 9, 2021 The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky, A Crime and Its Punishment by Kevin Birmingham Review by Karen Langley The bicentenary of the birth of Fyodor Dostoevsky has seen a flurry of books about the man and his work….
December 7, 2021 Everybody: A Book About Freedom by olivia laing Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Olivia Laing has established herself as a group biographer par excellence, taking as her subjects alcoholic writers for the superb…
December 2, 2021 Her Diaries and Notebooks, by Patricia Highsmith, edited by Anna von Planta Review by Basil Ransome-Davies What a prodigious event this book is. Highsmith was an assiduous note-keeper and diarist. The calendar spread is 1941-1995. The…
December 2, 2021 Lily: A Tale of Revenge by Rose Tremain Reviewed by Harriet From the first moment that we meet Lily Mortimer, we know her secret. We know it because she dreams of her…
November 30, 2021 The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki Review by Anna Hollingsworth Imagine if a book began to narrate your story to you. What kind of voice would that be? Would it…
November 30, 2021 Are We Having Fun Yet? By Lucy Mangan Review by Annabel Those of you who’ve read journalist and author Lucy Mangan’s ‘memoir of childhood reading’, Bookworm, (which Liz reviewed here) will rejoice…
November 25, 2021 These Precious Days by Ann Patchett Reviewed by Harriet I’m a great admirer of Ann Patchett’s novels. I read Bel Canto when it first came out and have loved her…
November 25, 2021 The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, edited by David Wondrich with Noah Rothbaum Review by Hayley Anderton The first book I met when I started working in the wine trade was Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to…
November 23, 2021 The Swift and the Harrier by Minette Walters Reviewed by Julie Barham This is an historical novel with much to recommend it, and as it is created by a world famous crime…
November 23, 2021 ‘Passing’ by Nella Larsen, from Novella to Screen Chicago born author Nella Larsen is the daughter of a Dutch mother and a father of mixed race Afro-Caribbean from Danish West Indies. With…
November 18, 2021 Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi Review by Simon Thomas As a place to be trapped, a train has a good precedent. Whether Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express,…
November 18, 2021 Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro Translated by Frances Riddle Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite Claudia Piñeiro is an author from Argentina who, so far, has mostly been published in English…
November 16, 2021 Adam O’Riordan answers questions on The Falling Thread Interview by Harriet As an already successful poet and short-story writer, what made you turn to the novel? Was it a sudden decision or…
November 16, 2021 The Falling Thread by Adam O’Riordan Reviewed by Harriet Unlike some of my fellow reviewers, I tend not to seize upon debut novels. Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I usually…
November 11, 2021 Which Way by Theodora Benson (Blog Tour) Reviewed by Harriet Published in 1931 and newly reissued in the British Library Women Writers Series, this is a fascinating book in a number…
November 11, 2021 Allegorizings by Jan Morris Review by Liz Dexter “If I had any moral principles to declare, I came to realize, they were extremely simplistic. First, there was the…
November 9, 2021 Silverview by John le Carré Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies John le Carré, eh? Can’t do credible working-class dialogue, draws sympathetic female characters but rather abstractly, plots convoluted and full…
November 9, 2021 Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden by Benedict Macdonald & Nicholas Gates Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Bristol friends and BBC colleagues Ben Macdonald and Nick Gates set out to chronicle a year in the life of…
November 4, 2021 Oldladyvoice by Elisa Victoria Translated by Charlotte Whittle Review by Anna Hollingsworth When I pick up a book with a child narrator, it’s always with trepidation. I won’t…
November 4, 2021 George V: Never a Dull Moment, by Jane Ridley Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long A few years ago I read Jane Ridley’s biography of Edward VII, which I found a fascinating, fully rounded portrayal…
November 2, 2021 Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout Reviewed by Harriet I first encountered Elizabeth Strout back in February 2017 – according to my review at the time [here] I’d spotted My…
