Spy Out the Land by Jeremy Duns
Reviewed by Rob Spence Don’t read this book. Don’t, that is, unless you have read Jeremy Duns’s previous three Paul Dark spy thrillers, because this continues the story from where…
Reviewed by Rob Spence Don’t read this book. Don’t, that is, unless you have read Jeremy Duns’s previous three Paul Dark spy thrillers, because this continues the story from where…
Translated by Hugh Aplin Reviewed by Karen Langley Russian author Anton Chekhov, although possibly best known for his plays like The Cherry Orchard, is also the acknowledged master of the short…
Written by Victoria So what’s a medieval historian to do with a figure like Chaucer? A man who still exerts a fascination over his audience down through the centuries, and…
Written by Simon Thomas We’re featuring a few Virginia Woolf titles in this issue, so it seemed a good time to turn attention to her in our Five Fascinating Facts…
Reviewed by Simon There are plenty of copies of Virginia Woolf’s famous feminist essay A Room of One’s Own available, new and second hand, but I couldn’t resist reviewing it now that…
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This was an unusual read for me, as I know the author pretty well, having worked alongside him for a very busy and intensive year in…
Reviewed by Jenny Jenny Uglow has delved into the diaries and letters of an abundance of ordinary people — farmers, soldiers, artisans, and their families — to discover the ways…
Paperback review by Ali Hope Anna Hope’s remarkable novel Wake is newly out in paperback, and I urge anyone who has not read it to get themselves a copy. I read this…
Translated from the Basque by Elizabeth Macklin Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite Bilbao – New York – Bilbao is Kirmen Uribe’s first novel; it won the Spanish National Literature Prize in 2009,…
Written by Helen Skinner “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.” In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, these are the words spoken by the three witches to Macbeth’s friend, Banquo. Soon after this,…
Reviewed by Simon Janet McNeill is a name probably known only to aficionados of Virago Modern Classics, where Tea at Four O’Clock once made an appearance. I have to confess to not having…
Reviewed by Harriet I almost missed the boat where Ben Aaronovitch was concerned. I might never have discovered him at all if my fellow editor Annabel hadn’t given me Rivers of…
Reviewed by Susan Osborne New Zealand writer Peter Walker’s third novel is surprisingly slim given the amount of ground it covers, taking its central characters from their heady student days…
By Marilyn Dell Brady For the past three years, I have been reading globally and diversely, reading books written by people of color. The result has been exciting. By definition, people of…
Reviewed by Harriet I first discovered the novels of John Grisham over a decade ago, and had a terrific splurge, which I remember enjoying tremendously. Then things moved on and…
Review by Judith Wilson I had read and been intrigued by Amanda Coe’s strong debut novel, What They Do in the Dark (Virago, 2011), so I couldn’t wait to lay my hands…
Translated by Sandra Smith Reviewed by Harriet The Fires of Autumn, first published in France in 1957, is the most recent of Irène Némirovsky’s novels to be translated into English….
My novel Fog Island Mountains is about a mixed-culture family living in southern Japan. The novel centers on the father’s unexpected diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and his wife’s flight from and denial…
Reviewed by Rebecca Hussey Full disclosure: I’ve been reading Michelle Bailat-Jones’s blog for many years now, we have been “internet friends” for most of that time, and I wrote book…
Written by Victoria It’s the summer of 1940 and Lisbon in Portugal is bursting at the seams with people desperate to leave mainland Europe and the march of the Nazis….
Reviewed by Kathleen Holly Marsh Jigsaw Man is a typical crime novel following two murder investigations set in and around London in the present day. Detective Inspector Mark Tartaglia is the…
Translated by John Brownjohn Reviewed by Annabel Alex Capus is a French-Swiss novelist who writes in German. He was born in France and now lives in Switzerland. He has written…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Jane Smiley’s thirteenth novel returns to the winning formula of her 1991 Pulitzer Prize winner, A Thousand Acres, which transplanted King Lear to an Iowan farm. Some Luck is the first…
Reviewed by Adèle Geras Lamentation is the sixth novel in a series which began in 2003 with Dissolution and which has continued through Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, and Heartstone. As a series, it…