This Really Isn’t About You by Jean Hannah Edelstein
Review by Max Dunbar There’s a common British anecdote that goes: ‘We had some American friends here on holiday, and on the third day they drove to Stonehenge!’ The idea…
A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio
Translated by Ann Goldstein Review by Gill Davies It is 1975, somewhere in the south of Italy. A thirteen year old girl drags a suitcase and a bag of shoes…
Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
Reviewed by Harriet He wished that he could just once hear his sister play a solo again. Or help his sister pin up the hem on a dress she’d made….
The Dinosaurs Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution is Rewriting History by Michael J Benton
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Michael J. Benton is Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology and head of the Palaeontology Research Group at the University of Bristol, so you can be sure he…
The Frayed Atlantic Edge by David Gange
Reviewed by Peter Reason David Gange is historian at the University of Birmingham and a passion for mountains and wild water. Well before The Frayed Atlantic Edge was published, I…
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster It’s been six years since Elizabeth Gilbert’s last work of fiction, The Signature of All Things, (reviewed here), a warm, playful doorstopper telling the eventful life…
This Is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook
Edited by: Farrell, Clare, Alison Green, Sam Knights, and William Skeaping Review by Peter Reason There cannot be many followers of Shiny New Books who are not aware of the…
A Stranger in my Grave by Margaret Millar
Reviewed by Harriet Margaret Millar, born in Canada in 1915, lived for most of her life in California with her husband Ken, who wrote crime novels under the name Ross…
Red Circle Authors: An unusual and innovative venture
By Karen Langley Japanese literature has a long and rich heritage stretching from early works like The Pillow Book (990s) and The Tale of Genji (early 11th century) to modern…
Tragedy, Farce and the Future: the Red Circle Minis
Review by Karen Langley As I’ve explained in my Bookbuzz feature, the Red Circle Minis are three slim volumes of original writing published by Red Circle Authors. Each book is…
Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain
Translated by Jane Aitken and Emily Boyce Reviewed by Annabel Since I discovered the feelgood novels by French author Antoine Laurain, brought to us in translation by Gallic Books, I’ve…
CHAOS:Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies In Stephen Dobyns’ murder mystery Saratoga Swimmer Charlie Bradshaw, unlicensed private eye and true-crime addict, recounts the story of New York gangster Dutch Schultz’s 1935 assassination…
Selfies by Sylvie Weil
Translated by Ros Schwartz Review by Karen Langley The selfie might seem to be a very modern phenomenon; the sight of people constantly stretching their arms out and craning to…
The Quarter by Najib Mahfouz
Translated by Roger Allen Review by Anna Hollingsworth On the rare occasions that someone uncovers unpublished work by a deceased writer, publishing takes an archeological turn. An unpublished manuscript, like…