October 21, 2015 Friday on my Mind by Nicci French Reviewed by Harriet The crime-writing couple known as Nicci French have had an amazingly productive and successful career. Having published no less than 11…
October 20, 2015 Ezra Pound: Poet, Volume III by A. David Moody Reviewed by Rob Spence A. David Moody’s monumental biography of Ezra Pound reaches its conclusion with this third and final volume. Having taken the…
October 20, 2015 Upcoming Books to Films By Diana Cheng Autumn ushers in major film festivals, a springboard to the Awards Season. The following is a list of new movie adaptations,…
October 20, 2015 The Autobiography of James T. Kirk edited by David A. Goodman Reviewed by Annabel I still have a huge affection for Star Trek in all its incarnations and, as time goes on, although Jean-Luc Picard is the…
October 19, 2015 Interview with Pushkin Vertigo series cover designer Jamie Keenan Questions by Victoria I’ve been looking at book covers you’ve designed and it’s an incredibly impressive range. How did you start working with books…
October 16, 2015 The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janet Galloway Reviewed by Julie Barham If a picture of mind numbing grief was to be fictionalised, this is the novel to read. This is a…
October 16, 2015 Sweet Caress by William Boyd Reviewed by Harriet I’ve read all William Boyd’s novels, and have liked most of them enormously. Over the years he’s played with a number…
October 16, 2015 The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah Reviewed by Terence Jagger This was an interesting read, and there have been times when it would have been an act of bravery to…
October 15, 2015 An Interview with Joanne Limburg By Victoria What I absolutely loved about A Want of Kindness was the voice you’ve managed to create. It was so brilliantly of the…
October 15, 2015 A Want of Kindness by Joanne Limburg Reviewed by Victoria Finally! A historical novelist whose wit and insight and glorious prose might threaten to topple Hilary Mantel from her throne. If…
October 15, 2015 Thirteen Guests by J Jefferson Farjeon Reviewed by Harriet Every station has its special voice. Some are of grit. Some are of sand. Some are of milk cans. Some are…
October 15, 2015 Renishaw Hall: The Story of the Sitwells by Desmond Seward Reviewed by Ali Hope I read very few non-fiction books these days, but this was a book that ticked a number of boxes for…
October 15, 2015 The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Stories, by Joan Aiken Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess For over sixty years – starting about age sixteen and continuing right up until her death in 2004 –…
October 15, 2015 Worktown by David Hall Reviewed by Harriet The Astonishing Story of the Project that Launched Mass-Observation So screams the cover of this book. I’m always a bit wary…
October 15, 2015 Moving by Jenny Eclair Reviewed by Laura Marriott Moving is the latest literary offering from Jenny Eclair. It is the fourth novel from the comedian, who has published three…
October 14, 2015 The 101 Greatest Plays from Antiquity to the Present, by Michael Billington Reviewed by Harriet As the longest-serving British theatre critic, a biographer, and a teacher and lecturer at several world-class universities, Michael Billington has some…
October 14, 2015 Spotlight on Young Adult Fiction – Autumn 2015 By Memory Scarlett and Jenny Young adult fiction seems unstoppable these days, with its ever-increasing bookshop floor space and arbitrary, balkanized genre divisions. It’s…
October 13, 2015 Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson Reviewed by Simon This is the third Shiny New Books issue in which I’ve had the privilege of writing about Shirley Jackson’s works –…
October 12, 2015 Interview with Sam Mills, Editorial Director of Dodo Ink Interview by Victoria The founders of Dodo Ink are a blogger/reviewer, a novelist and a digital publishing specialist – such an intriguing combination. How did…
October 12, 2015 Not on Fire, But Burning by Greg Hrbek Reviewed by Annabel The prologue of this novel set in the near future begins in some style. College student Skyler Wakefield opted to stay…
October 8, 2015 Murder on Sea by Julie Wassmer Reviewed by Victoria Earlier this year I read the first in the Whitstable Pearl series by Julie Wassmer and enjoyed it. It featured an…
October 8, 2015 The Shiny Poetry Competition It’s not just Man Booker prize season, the publication date of Issue 7 of Shiny New Books coincides (deliberately) with National Poetry Day 2015, on…
October 8, 2015 The Miner by Natsume Soseki In a new translation by Jay Rubin Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite Shiny new publisher: Aardvark Bureau, the new Gallic Books imprint headed up by…
October 8, 2015 Belonging by Umi Sinha Reviewed by Victoria Not only was this novel one of the most gripping, engrossing, heart-in-mouth novels I’ve read in 2015, it wins hands-down the…
October 8, 2015 The Living and the Dead in Winsford by Håkan Nesser Translated by Laurie Thompson Reviewed by Gill Davies Håkan Nesser is a successful, award-winning Swedish crime writer best known for the Van Veeteren series of…