March 5, 2021 Hotel Cartagena by Simone Buchholz Translated by Rachel Ward Reviewed by Annabel I’ve come late to German ‘Queen of Krimi’ Simone Buchholz’s novels. Hotel Cartagena is the ninth of…
March 4, 2021 The Panic Years by Nell Frizzell Reviewed by Harriet ‘Every millennial woman should have this on her bookshelf’ says Pandora Sykes on the front of Nell Frizzell’s new book. New…
March 4, 2021 She Come By It Natural by Sarah Smarsh Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies Forty years ago I spent some time on the motel strip at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, to do some hiking…
March 2, 2021 The Ice by John Kåre Raake Translated by Adam King Reviewed by Gill Davies John Kåre Rake is a successful Norwegian screen writer and this is his first novel. It’s…
March 2, 2021 Grayson’s Art Club: The Exhibition (Manchester Art Gallery, 2020) Reviewed by Liz Dexter Back at the beginning of the first lockdown, Grayson Perry, potter and tapestry maker extraordinaire and no stranger to intimate…
February 25, 2021 Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns Reviewed by Harriet Barbara Comyns seems to be enjoying a well-deserved renaissance at the moment. In addition to this one, just published by Daunt…
February 25, 2021 Thin Places by Kerri ní Dochartaigh Review by Peter Reason I have been totally absorbed in Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s Thin Places since it arrived in the morning mail and I…
February 23, 2021 Chauvo-Feminism: On Sex, Power and #MeToo by Sam Mills Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Remember the 1990s? It was a decade where lads’ mags decorated magazine shelves in supermarkets and where Men Are from…
February 23, 2021 A Long Way From Douala by Max Lobe Translated by Ros Schwartz Reviewed by Annabel I have a personal goal to increase diversity in my reading and am glad to have discovered…
February 18, 2021 House With No Doors by Jeff Noon Reviewed by Annabel Having been a fan of Jeff Noon’s cult spec fiction novels set in an alternate Manchester, I was surprised and delighted…
February 18, 2021 How We Are Translated by Jessica Gaitán Johannesson Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth When an author is described as having a ”fresh voice”, I usually dismiss the description with a shrug; the attribute…
February 16, 2021 The Foolish Gentlewoman by Margery Sharp Reviewed by Harriet At fifty-five, Isobel Brocken was still a nice-looking woman. She dated, of course, all her female friends said so – poor…
February 16, 2021 Writers & Lovers by Lily King Paperback review by Rebecca Foster I almost passed on the chance to read this because I’d gotten the impression that it was nothing more…
February 11, 2021 The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Robert Jones, Jr. had doubts about writing The Prophets: “Not only was the subject matter too uncharted but the psychic…
February 11, 2021 Astral Travel by Elizabeth Baines Reviewed by Annabel …a lot of what I remember is not the same as what the others remember, which was partly what caused the…
February 9, 2021 This Time Next Year We’ll be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear Reviewed by Harriet Jacqueline Winspear was born in 1955. Her debut novel – the first of her award-winning Maisie Dobbs mysteries – was published…
February 9, 2021 Mr Cadmus by Peter Ackroyd Reviewed by Annabel Owning most of Ackroyd’s fiction output and a good chunk of his non-fiction (even if I haven’t quite read it all),…
February 4, 2021 We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan Review by Pete Freeth As the British publishing industry continues to strive for greater diversity and cultural representation, initiatives like the #Merky Books New…
February 4, 2021 The Death of Francis Bacon by Max Porter Reviewed by Annabel Max Porter emerged on the British literary scene in the mid-2010s as an author to be watched. His debut 2015 novella…
February 2, 2021 Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights, edited by Polly Russell and Margaretta Jolly Reviewed by Liz Dexter It used to be that we attended exhibitions and treated ourselves to the catalogue in the shop on the way…
February 2, 2021 Reviewer’s Choice: A New Sublime – Ten Timeless Lessons on the Classics by Piero Boitani While Shiny New Books concentrates on the new, occasionally, we give our reviewers room to share previously published – ie: ‘not Shiny New Books’…
January 28, 2021 Right After the Weather by Carol Anshaw Paperback review by Susan Osborne Set in Carol Anshaw’s home town of Chicago in the months before and after the 2016 election, Right After…
January 28, 2021 The Fresh and the Salt: The Story of the Solway by Ann Lingard Reviewed by Peter Reason When I was a small boy—and this memory must reach back to around 1950—I played with a wooden puzzle made…
January 26, 2021 Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp Reviewed by Harriet Ever since I started reading book review blogs, some years ago now, I have often encountered Margery Sharp’s name, generally accompanied…
January 26, 2021 The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack Reviewed by Terence Jagger Katie Mack is an American astrophysicist, but her writing is very informal and almost journalistic or chatty – which is…
