July 31, 2018 Release by Patrick Ness Review by Annabel Only the fact that I’d never read Mrs Dalloway blinded me to the power of the first sentence of Ness’s latest novel: Adam…
July 26, 2018 Room to Dream by Kristine McKenna and David Lynch Reviewed by Harriet David Lynch’s films are certainly not for everybody. Almost all of them are strange, dark, and increasingly hard to pin down…
July 24, 2018 Vernon Subutex 2 by Virginie Despentes Translated by Frank Wynne Review by Basil Ransome-Davies Almost two decades ago I saw a French movie called Baise-moi. It contained, besides much simulated…
July 19, 2018 The Aviator by Eugene Vodolazkin Translated by Lisa Hayden Reviewed by Karen Langley You awake in a hospital bed. You have no memory of who you are or how…
July 17, 2018 Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahnuik Review by Rob Spence I began reading this book just as the outcry over the Trump regime’s treatment of migrants was gathering pace. It…
July 17, 2018 Disoriental by Négar Djavadi Translated by Tina A Kover Review by Marina Sofia With a blurb promising a story of growing up in exile and even the title…
July 12, 2018 Sacred Britannia: The Gods and Rituals of Roman Britain by Miranda Aldhouse-Green Review by Liz Dexter Miranda Aldhouse-Green is a specialist in Romano-British studies and Iron Age archaeology and has written other books on myth and…
July 12, 2018 Retribution Road by Antonin Varenne Translated by Sam Taylor Review by Gill Davies Having become rather jaded with the predictability of the crime fiction genre and wearied by the…
July 9, 2018 The Golden Booker Celebration Who will win in 2018? Do share your longlist predictions… Report by Annabel When I booked my ticket for this event a couple of…
July 7, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: ‘The ones that got away’ It’s not always the case (or often?) that judges and readers are all in agreement on longlists, let alone the shortlists or eventual winners…
July 6, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: 2009-2017 And finally, this fifth decade brings us up to date with previous winners of the Man Booker Prize. In 2010, the organisation decided to…
July 5, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: 1999-2008 The prize’s fourth decade marked the first time, in 2001, that the longlist was revealed to the world at large. It decade also marked…
July 4, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: 1989-1998 During the prize’s third decade, for the second time in its history, two books tied for top spot in 1992. Then, in 1993, the…
July 3, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: 1979-1988 The second decade of the prize, apart from producing the “Booker of Bookers” in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, was enlivened by some tight judging decisions….
July 2, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: 1969-1978 When the Booker Prize was inaugurated, prizes for literature were rather looked down upon, they just didn’t make much impact. Tom Maschler looked at…
July 1, 2018 Introducing Shiny’s Booker Week Dear Readers, The Booker Prize will be 50 years old this year. The longlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize will be announced on…