April 30, 2020 Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights by Helen Lewis Review by Liz Dexter First of all a caveat, in case any keen-eyed reader finds my name in the acknowledgements: I did work on…
April 30, 2020 Puzzles, constraints and cryptograms: An Oulipo beginner’s primer By Karen Langley Although you may never have heard the name of the literary group Oulipo, there’s a good chance you might actually have…
April 28, 2020 Apeirogon by Colum McCann Review by Anna Hollingsworth The most exhilarating reviews to write are those where you can bring a book down, even if it’s just a…
April 28, 2020 Actress by Anne Enright Reviewed by Harriet Why have I never read Anne Enright before? I’m always interested in Booker prize winners (she won for The Gathering in…
April 23, 2020 ‘Not’ the Wellcome Prize Blog Tour 2020 #2 – Galileo’s Error by Philip Goff The Wellcome Book Prize is on hiatus this year – we really hope it’ll return in 2021 as this unique prize, which celebrates literature…
April 23, 2020 ‘Not’ the Wellcome Prize Blog Tour 2020 #1 – Vagina A Re-Education by Lynn Enright The Wellcome Book Prize is on hiatus this year – we really hope it’ll return in 2021 as this unique prize, which celebrates literature…
April 21, 2020 Let’s Talk: How English Conversation Works by David Crystal Review by Liz Dexter “What makes a successful conversation?” is a question David Crystal considers asking people in his new book – and, well,…
April 21, 2020 My Husband Simon by Mollie Panter-Downes Reviewed by Harriet I’m sure I’m not alone in having rejoiced when the British Library announced a new series of reprints of 20th century…
April 16, 2020 A Long Way Off by Pascal Garnier Translated by Emily Boyce Reviewed by Annabel For the past eight years, Gallic Books have been translating and publishing the gloriously black-humored noir novellas…
April 16, 2020 Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild by Lucy Jones Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Back in early March, just before literary events started being cancelled due to coronavirus, I had the good fortune to…
April 14, 2020 The Birds They Sang: Birds and People in Life and Art by Stanisław Łubieński Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston Review by Peter Reason Stanisław Łubieński first began observing birds in childhood through Soviet binoculars. Later, he took…
April 14, 2020 A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry Reviewed by Harriet, 14 April 2020 In early times I was Ojinjintka, which means rose. Thomas McNulty tried very hard to say this name,…
April 9, 2020 A Bite of the Apple by Lennie Goodings Review by Simon There’s a certain variety of person who can always spot a bottle-green spine at a hundred paces, and has faced the…
April 9, 2020 Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Review by Peter Reason There has been a lot of interest recently in the idea of ‘rewilding’, expressed for example in Isabella Tree’s Wilding:…
April 7, 2020 She-Merchants, Buccaneers and Gentlewomen: British Women in India by Katie Hickman Reviewed by Harriet What an enticing title! Made even more so by the sub-title, ‘British Women in India’. Katie Hickman, who herself led a…
April 7, 2020 A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen by Martin Gayford and David Hockney Reviewed by Liz Dexter This is a new ‘compact’ edition of this book, with a revised final chapter bringing it all up to date,…
April 2, 2020 The Language of Birds by Jill Dawson Reviewed by Susan Osborne, 2 April 2020 I’m a fan of Jill Dawson’s writing. Her last novel, The Crime Writer, was a wonderful piece…
April 2, 2020 Drinking French by David Lebovitz Review by Hayley Anderton Before everything started to close down the books I had been particularly anticipating, ordering, and reading, were mostly food and…
