The Gradual by Christopher Priest
Reviewed by David Harris This was the first of Christopher Priest’s books that I’d read. While I gather from other reviews that it’s particularly accessible for him and so probably…
The Captain with the Whiskers by Benedict Kiely
Reviewed by Julie Barham When the old captain died the family went strange and it wasn’t with grief, and if you want to know why, you should talk to somebody…
Loose Canon: the extraordinary songs of Clive James and Pete Atkin by Ian Shircore
Review by Rob Spence It’s now over forty years since I discovered the songs of Pete Atkin and Clive James. In a wonderful series of albums in the late sixties…
The Girl in Green by Derek D. Miller
Reviewed by Gill Davies In the past, I have hesitated to read a novel that uses dreadful contemporary events as its plot and thematic focus, in case it feels exploitative…
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Reviewed by Simon It might seem strange to include a novel in the reprints section that is only 13 years old – but Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has recently had all…
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Paperback review by Naomi Eileen might ‘look like a girl you’d expect to see on a city bus, reading some clothbound book from the library about plants or geography’ but if…
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
Reviewed by Harriet Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid…
The Age of Bowie by Paul Morley
Reviewed by Annabel When the world woke up on January 10th to hear that David Bowie had died just two days after Blackstar was released, we all mourned. I still…
Spotlight on Publishers: NYRB
Q & A with Edwin Frank, Editorial Director at NYRB The Eds at Shiny are all great fans of NYRB books. Can you tell us a little about the genesis…
Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
Translated by Basil Creighton / revised by Margot Bettauer Dembo Reviewed by Karen Langley Being known as the author of one successful book can be as much of a curse…
Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Venice, Tokyo and London, by Lauren Elkin
Reviewed by Helen Parry ‘I think people are made of the places not only where they’ve been raised, but that they’ve loved; I think environments inhabit us […] By understanding…
Secret Lives: Real Women in Fiction
Written by Ann Kennedy Smith A Quiet Life by Natasha Walter (Borough Press, 2016), Mrs Engels by Gavin McCrea (Scribe, 2016) I spend a lot of my time reading other people’s private letters…
About My Mother by Tahar Ben Jelloun
Translated by Ros Schwartz & Lulu Norman Reviewed by Alice Farrant About My Mother is the story of a Lalla Fatma, written down by her son Tahar as she lays…
Where Roses Never Die by Gunnar Staalesen
Translated by Don Bartlett Reviewed by Gill Davies Where Roses Never Die is my first Gunnar Staalesen novel. Staalesen is Norwegian and he has been successfully writing crime fiction since 1977,…
Revenger by Alastair Reynolds
Reviewed by David Harris Alastair Reynolds has a reputation as a prolific writer of SF and made waves a few years ago when he signed a ten book deal with…
The Men’s Club by Leonard Michaels
Reviewed by Simon There have been quite a few reprints, in recent years, from the interwar period and thereabouts. We are familiar with Golden Age detective fiction coming back into…
The Methods of Sergeant Cluff by Gil North
Reviewed by Harriet The rain wept on him from the eyes of the trees. The winter afternoon waned to its close. He withdrew into himself, stifling thought, powerless to guide…
Paulina & Fran by Rachel B. Glaser
Reviewed by Susan Osborne Female friendship is a frequent theme in fiction, or at least what’s often dubbed as ‘women’s fiction’. It can be more than a little idealised but…
Diary of the Dark Years 1940 – 1944 by Jean Guéhenno
Translated and annotated by David Ball Review by Terence Jagger This is a sombre book, the diary of a thoughtful but determined man – a teacher and writer who, 50…
How Sarah Waters Won Over the Reading World
By Victoria Best The press release for Sarah Waters’ new novel, The Paying Guests, describes it as ‘the most anticipated book of 2014’ and for once, this feels more like fact…
Q&A with Samantha Norman
Samantha was interviewed by Harriet H: Hi Samantha – thanks for agreeing to answer some questions. I very much enjoyed Winter Siege, and wondered if you could say something about the…
Caught in the Revolution by Helen Rappaport
Reviewed by Rob Spence We seem to have a glut of popular historians at the moment. Simon Schama, Tom Holland, Peter Frankopan, Lara Feigel, Mary Beard are among the names…
French Rhapsody by Antoine Laurain
Translated by Jane Aitken and Emily Boyce Reviewed by Annabel I experienced the sheer joy of reading French author Antoine Laurain earlier this summer when I finally read his first…
Paris Street Tales edited by Helen Constantine
Reviewed by Harriet I live in rural France, and visit Paris from time to time, generally rather briefly. I’m beginning to get the hang of the city and to appreciate…