A Novel Calling: Eleanor Franzén’s Books That Were Written Just For Me
Written by Eleanor Franzén Love Like Salt by Helen Stevenson In February, I read an advance proof copy of Helen Stevenson’s Love Like Salt, and although I’d never seen a…
Written by Eleanor Franzén Love Like Salt by Helen Stevenson In February, I read an advance proof copy of Helen Stevenson’s Love Like Salt, and although I’d never seen a…
Reviewed by Laura Marriott Tremarnock is a picture perfect Cornish fishing village, largely untouched by gentrification, poverty or seasonal tourism. It is here that we find our protagonists, for whom…
Reviewed by Harriet The sense of space, and in the end, the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, &c. were exhibited in proportions so vast as the…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton My first brush with Thirkell was at least a decade ago, courtesy of an old Penguin edition of The Brandons picked up in a second hand bookshop because…
Reviewed by Harriet One quiet evening in Salisbury, the peace is shattered by a serious car crash. At that moment, the lives of five people collide – a flower-seller, a…
Reviewed by Marina Sofia There are some who crave solitude, others who fear it. There are those who crave some idealized version of solitude, à la Thoreau, absorbing the lessons…
Reviewed by Victoria There are some novels that are all about the language, and Girl in Profile is one of them. How much you enjoy it will depend to a certain extent…
Reviewed by Harriet He was in the room. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, but she’d been dreaming. In the dark someone padded between the furniture, and loose…
Review by Annabel Mary Portas is one of those TV presenter/gurus you either love or find profoundly irritating. I love her and her championing of the high street and independent…
Reviewed by Laura Marriott “I always thought it would be classy to not kiss and tell … but after a while you just get sick of having other people trying…
Translated by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, Anne Marie Jackson and Irina Steinberg Reviewed by Karen Langley The Russian Revolution and ensuing Civil War were amongst the most brutal conflicts of…
Reviewed by Annabel Francis Spufford is known for his five non-fiction books, the subjects of which are varied in the extreme, notably his delightful memoir of childhood reading The Child…
Compiled by Annabel The story goes that London cabbies won’t go ‘South of the River’ after dark – I have no proof of this, but it’s an enduring myth. Asked…
Reviewed by Simon Full disclosure from the off: I am longstanding blogging friends with the author of this book, and also an admirer of his earlier fiction (sequels to E.F….
Reviewed by Simon Katherine Mansfield is, of course, best known for her short stories – and rightly so; for my money, she is the greatest short story writer I’ve ever…
Reviewed by Harriet I’ve read and enjoyed all three of the prizewinning Belfast writer Lucy Caldwell’s full-length novels, so, though short stories are not usually my genre of choice, I…
Asked by HarrietLucy, people always like to know how a writer got started. So can you tell us about your beginnings, and when you realised you were going to be…
Reviewed by Harriet Here at Shiny we love our reprints, and are always delighted to include reviews of one or more of the British Library’s Crime Classics series. So when…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster This is the second gem I’ve read from Head of Zeus’s new imprint, Apollo. Like Josephine Johnson’s Now in November, which won the 1935 Pulitzer Prize, this…
Translated by Robert Vilain Reviewed by Karen Langley Back in 2013, I read a really lovely book called Rilke in Paris, which focused on the life of the great German poet…
Reviewed by Annabel Debut novelist P.K. Lynch trained as an actor before having a family and turning to writing plays. Her first professional acting job was playing Lizzy in Trainspotting, (in…
I recently met up with a bunch of friends from university for the afternoon. ‘You’re very successful now, aren’t you?’ one guy boomed at me before even saying ‘hello’. I…
Questions by Rebecca Foster 1. Readers learn so few facts about Tess – even her name and where she’s from are not revealed until a long way into the book,…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Twenty-two-year-old Tess arrives in New York City by car in June 2006. Feeling like a Midwestern bumpkin, she has no money for tolls and has to…