The Devil and Webster by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Reviewed by Harriet I’d never heard of Jean Hanff Korelitz when her 2014 novel, You Should Have Known, landed unsolicited in my mailbox. I read it with huge admiration and…
Q&A with Emma Henderson about ‘The Valentine House’
Questions by Annabel Annabel: Taking the cog railway up the mountain and then a hike from the station brings back happy memories for me of summer holidays at Caux on the…
The Valentine House by Emma Henderson
Reviewed by Annabel Here they come. Here they are. Les anglais, the English, les rosbifs. After a rather attention-grabbling opening, in which the ageing Sir Anthony Valentine writes some extremely…
Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore
Reviewed by Harriet I wanted to write about people whose voices have not echoed through time and whose struggles and passions have been hidden from history So writes Helen Dunmore…
Tom Tiddler’s Ground by Ursula Orange
Reviewed by Simon One of the authors I’ve been on the look-out for, for years, is Ursula Orange – entirely the responsibility of Scott (from the Furrowed Middlebrow blog) who…
David Jones: Engraver, Soldier, Painter, Poet by Thomas Dilworth
Review by Rob Spence Ask a reasonably well-educated person to name some Anglophone modernist poets, and you are sure to hear the names of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Mention…
Foxes Unearthed: A story of love and loathing in modern Britain by Lucy Jones
Review by Hayley Anderton Where I live – middle of a city, no garden, bins inside, and nobody feeding them, foxes are a delight to see. They seem generally indifferent…
How to Be Human by Paula Cocozza
Reviewed by Alice Farrant At 35, Mary is single and living in the house she once shared with her partner. She goes to work only to be berated by her…
Mikhail and Margarita by Julie Lekstrom Himes
Review by Karen Langley In this centenary year of the Russian Revolution, much attention is being focused on Soviet Russia and its culture. One author who exerts an eternal fascination…
Rain: Four Walks in English Weather by Melissa Harrison
Reviewed by Rob Spence I come from Manchester, so I know about rain. Actually, Manchester’s reputation as the rainy city is, as I am overfond of pointing out, a result…
A House in Flanders, by Michael Jenkins
Reviewed by Helen Parry In the extreme northern part of France lies the plain of Flanders, a great fertile expanse rolling inland from the sea until it meets a chain…
Gone: A Girl, a Violin, and a Life Unstrung by Min Kym
Reviewed by Harriet For some reason I’ve always been fascinated by child prodigies – people who seem to have been born with an innate talent for something, which very often…
A Separation by Katie Kitamura
Reviewed by Marina Sofia It is easier to tell you what A Separation is not, rather than what it is. It is not a mystery, although a disappearance features quite…
My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal
Paperback review by Alice Farrant My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal is a powerful story that discusses race, mental illness, and family, through the abandonment of a child. It’s…
Guest Post: Kit de Waal – on being mixed race
Kit de Waal is the author of My Name is Leon which was published last year to great acclaim – see our review of the novel here. We are taking part in the blog…
The Lark by Edith Nesbit
Reviewed by Harriet Last year there was a bit of a flutter in the blogging world when Edith Nesbit’s complete works popped up on Amazon for a very low price….
Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett
Review by Julie Barham I think that the overwhelming sense or atmosphere of this book is sadness. Nevertheless, it is a faithful picture of life in a town of the…
All the Places I’ve Ever Lived by David Gaffney
Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies David Gaffney has earned himself a distinctive reputation as a writer of ‘flash fictions’ – micro-stories, variable in tone and topic but springing from a…
Walking in Berlin by Franz Hessel
Translated by Amanda DeMarco Reviewed by Rob Spence Berlin is one of my favourite cities, and I have spent a lot of time walking around its fascinating streets. So the…