September 28, 2017 Every Word is a Bird We Teach to Sing : Encounters with the Mysteries & Meanings of Language by Daniel Tammet Reviewed by Liz Dexter You may remember Tammet from his autism memoir, Born on a Blue Day, and his fascination with words and languages as…
September 26, 2017 The Squeeze by Lesley Glaister Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Admitted, to say that the world has shrunk into a village has shrunk into a cliché itself. But the cliché…
September 26, 2017 Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak Paperback Review by Eric Karl Anderson It’s deeply frightening and upsetting how politically divided society is at the moment. When different factions are so…
September 21, 2017 Autumn by Ali Smith Paperback review by Clare Rowland Autumn is the first of four books in a planned series of novels by Ali Smith named after the seasons…
September 21, 2017 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen Reviewed by Julie Barham The inevitable question is, do we need a new edition of one of Austen’s books? Well, on the evidence of…
September 19, 2017 Russian Émigré Short Stories from Bunin to Yanovsky, edited by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley In the anniversary year of the 1917 Russian Revolution a number of books have been issued which look at that…
September 19, 2017 The Tryst by Monique Roffey Reviewed by Harriet This is a remarkable book by any standard. It’s marketed by the publisher, Dodo Ink, as a literary erotic novella, which…
September 14, 2017 The Easy Way Out by Steven Amsterdam Paperback reviewed by Susan Osborne This novel is unlikely to appeal to everyone although we should all read it. It’s about assisted suicide, one…
September 14, 2017 The Brazilian by Rosie Millard Reviewed by Laura Marriott The Brazilian opens in a London beauty salon where the middle class and nearly middle aged (although she would be furious…
September 12, 2017 Testimony by Scott Turow Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies The ‘international theme’ – Old World/New World – was a foreground concern of Henry James. It typically featured the…
September 12, 2017 The Ready Made Thief by Augustus Rose Reviewed by Harriet ‘A kickass debut from start to finish’ screams the cover of this highly readable, somewhat bizarre, debut novel. It’s a book…
September 7, 2017 Elmet by Fiona Mozley Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite When the 2017 Man Booker Prize longlist was announced last month, it included a number of familiar names (including Jon…
September 7, 2017 The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, by Theodora Goss Reviewed by Helen Parry I’m very fond of Theodora Goss’s short stories, so when I saw that she was publishing a novel I was…
September 5, 2017 Admissions by Henry Marsh Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Brain surgeon Henry Marsh’s first book, Do No Harm, was one of my favorite reads of 2015 [reviewed by Annabel here]. In short,…
September 5, 2017 The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley Reviewed by Annabel Natasha Pulley’s debut novel, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (which I reviewed here in 2015), was a wonderful discovery. A period…
