April 26, 2018 All the Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth J Church Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Elizabeth J. Church’s debut novel, The Atomic Weight of Love, was about an 87-year-old amateur ornithologist whose husband was one…
April 26, 2018 Rex V. Edith Thompson: A Tale of Two Murders by Laura Thompson Review by Karen Langley The Thompson-Bywaters murder case (also known as “The Ilford Murder”) is notorious, but I think most of my previous knowledge…
April 24, 2018 The Vintage Shetland Project by Susan Crawford Reviewed by Hayley Anderton The Vintage Shetland Project has had quite a journey into print, one that I’ve followed with interest for the last…
April 24, 2018 Rosie by Rose Tremain Reviewed by Harriet I’m a huge admirer of Rose Tremain’s brilliant novels, and very fond of childhood memoirs as a genre, so this one…
April 19, 2018 The Unbeliever by Oggy Boytchev Reviewed by Annabel Oggy (Ognian) Boytchev grew up behind the Iron Curtain in Bulgaria. He developed an interest in spies and spy novels as…
April 19, 2018 Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce Reviewed by Helen Skinner It’s 1941 and Britain is at war. Emmeline Lake has always wanted to be a journalist and is thrilled when…
April 17, 2018 A Chill in the Air by Iris Origo Review by Terence Jagger This is a fascinating book, written during the year or so preceding Italy’s entry in to the 1939-45 war, when…
April 17, 2018 How Shostakovich Changed My Mind by Stephen Johnson Review by Karen Langley Readers of Shiny New Books will know of my love for Notting Hill Editions books; I’ve reviewed their “Beautiful and…
April 12, 2018 The Golovlevs by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Translated by I.P. Foote Review by Karen Langley Back in SNB #13 I reviewed “The History of a Town” by Saltykov-Shchedrin, one of the…
April 12, 2018 To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell Review by Annabel I loved this book from the front cover to the back, starting with its title – that capital ‘B’ is crucial…
April 10, 2018 The Ropewalker and A People Without a Past by Jaan Kross Translated by Merike Lepasaar Beecher Reviewed by Gill Davies Thanks to the wonderful Maclehose Press I have discovered another writer in translation who deserves…
April 5, 2018 What She Ate by Laura Shapiro Reviewed by Hayley Anderton What She Ate looks at ‘six remarkable women and the food that tells their stories’. It comes at a time…
April 5, 2018 Moonrise & Lost Mars, ed. Mike Ashley Reviewed by Karen Langley There can’t be many readers of Shiny New Books who aren’t aware of the lovely British Library Crime Classics series:…
April 3, 2018 Diary of a Bipolar Explorer by Lucy Newlyn Reviewed by Jean Morris This is both useful and beautiful. Lucy Newlyn, recently retired Oxford professor of English literature, author of a lovely book,…
