July 9, 2014 Five Fascinating Facts About… Alexander Pushkin Written by Karen Langley 1. His matrilineal great grandfather was a Black African Page brought over to Russia as a slave. Abram Petrovich Gannibal (1696–1781)…
July 8, 2014 Lost Luggage by Jordi Punti Translated from the Catalan by Julie Wark Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell This is the story of Gabriel Delacruz, orphan, international furniture remover, lover and…
July 8, 2014 An Island Odyssey by Hamish Haswell-Smith Reviewed by Lizzy Siddal It is a piece of weakness and folly merely to value things because of the distance from the place where…
July 8, 2014 The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt Review by Harriet Have you ever had the experience of finishing a book and feeling as if you will never find another one that…
July 8, 2014 August Folly, Summer Half and The Brandons by Angela Thirkell Reviewed by Claire/The Captive Reader When I started blogging in early 2010, I had never heard of Angela Thirkell. Then, slowly, I started hearing…
July 8, 2014 Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones Translated by Clarissa Botsford Reviewed by Susan Osborne Reading fiction in translation offers us a glimpse into different worlds, cultures that we can never experience…
July 7, 2014 Thursday’s Children by Nicci French Reviewed by Harriet Devine People who know and love Nicci French will know at once that this is the fourth outing into the world…
July 7, 2014 The Stillman by Tom McCulloch Reviewed by Andrew Blackman Follow your dreams. It’s a phrase beloved of self-help authors and motivational speakers, but what if you can only follow…
July 7, 2014 The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O’Neill Reviewed by Victoria Best I firmly believe you can never dismiss any genre of book or any particular fictional setting as not your cup…
July 7, 2014 An Interview with Heather O’Neill Interview by Victoria Best I was fortunate enough to catch up with Canadian Heather O’Neill, author of The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, over a…
July 7, 2014 The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski Reviewed by Max Dunbar I first read House of Leaves as a teenager and fell in love with it: a grunge-emocore memory palace of a novel,…
July 4, 2014 Philipp Meyer and Linda Spalding talk to Kirsty Wark at Hay By Linda Spalding The Hay Festival is mythic to Canadians. What I mean is that we all covet an invitation. Mine came by email…
July 4, 2014 The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North Reviewed by Harriet Devine. “The world is ending,” she said. “The message has come from child to adult, child to adult, passed back down…
July 3, 2014 A Short Interview with Bethan Roberts Interview by Annabel Shiny’s Fiction Editor Annabel catches up with Bethan Roberts, author of Mother Island reviewed here. Annabel: Baby-snatching, child abduction, particularly when a child…
July 3, 2014 Mother Island by Bethan Roberts Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell Bethan Roberts’s fourth novel takes on one of the primal fears of all parents – that of someone abducting your…
July 3, 2014 The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert Reviewed by Harriet Devine She was her father’s daughter. It was said of her from the beginning. For one thing, Alma Whittaker looked precisely…
July 2, 2014 Reading Cornwall Written by Jane Carter It’s holiday reading time, so we asked a Cornish blogger to look at some of her favourite books set in…
July 1, 2014 Spotlight on Publishers: Peirene Press Written by Meike Ziervogel Glittering Gems in the Sea of the Human Imagination “I read, therefore I write, therefore I publish.” Before I started…
