Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
Reviewed by Harriet I’ve reviewed two of Elizabeth Strout’s novels on Shiny [here] and [here] and both were brilliant. But possibly my favourite up to now has been her 2009…
Find Me by André Aciman
Review by Anna Hollingsworth There are two kinds of novels to which I don’t want to see a sequel. There are, of course, the literary nightmares that I pray I…
Home Work by Julie Andrews
with Emma Walton Hamilton Review by Annabel Julie Andrews’s first volume of memoir, Home, told us of her childhood, growing up during the war, and her early career on stage in…
Violencia – A New History of Spain: Past, Present and the Future of the West, by Jason Webster
Review by Michael Eaude. Jason Webster takes a long, long view of Spanish history. Most history books concentrate on small chunks of time: this or that war; or a defined…
How to Read a Photograph: Understanding, Interpreting and Enjoying the Great Photographers by Ian Jeffrey
Review by Liz Dexter Of course, reading a photograph is subjective – there are not really any rules for what makes a photograph great or why a particular person will…
The Summer Isles by Philip Marsden
Reviewed by Peter Reason The Summer Isles is an account of a single-handed voyage from the south coast of England round the west of Ireland and on to the northwest…
Inheritance by Jenny Eclair
Review by Laura Marriott “Beginnings, middles and ends; Peggy, Serena, Natasha and Bel. This is the room that binds them, this is how consequences work . . . In deepest…
Gloucester Crescent by William Miller
Review by Annabel Nestled between Primrose Hill and Camden Town in NW1, it’s hard to believe that Gloucester Crescent (and Regents Park Terrace which joins its ends) was ever considered…
Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke
Review by Gill Davies This powerful and engrossing novel continues a series of crime novels in which Attica Locke uses plot and suspense to investigate inequality and American racism in…
Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie
Review by Peter Reason Kathleen Jamie is primarily known as a poet, but her prose writing is eagerly anticipated and widely acclaimed. Surfacing is the third in a loose trilogy…
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Reviewed by Harriet Ann Patchett believes in goodness, arguably a most unfashionable belief in today’s world. In the bookstore she runs, there’s a sign: ‘What good shall I do this…
Art Essentials: Street Art by Simon Armstrong
Review by Liz Dexter The Art Essentials series aims to be engaging, accessible, authoritative, richly illustrated and expertly written and conceived, and with a bookseller and book collector who has…
The Second Sleep by Robert Harris
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies In his indispensable primer What Is History? E. H. Carr underlines the point that ‘History’ has a double meaning: both the events, or facts, of the past, and…
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Reviewed by Ali Hope Although I have pre-ordered new releases a few times before it’s not something I do very often – and never have I felt swept along by…
Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
Review by Simon As the cover of Confessions of a Bookseller tells us, Bythell is an international bestseller. A couple of years ago, The Diary of a Bookseller was a…