May 28, 2021 Double Lives by Helen McCarthy Reviewed by Harriet In this impressively detailed book, shortlisted for this year’s Wolfson History Prize, Helen McCarthy surveys the lives of women who worked…
May 28, 2021 The Octopus Man by Jasper Gibson Review by Anne Goodwin Tom doesn’t expect life to be easy; it’s more important to follow a true path. Single, jobless and reliant on…
May 27, 2021 Mamma by Diana Tutton Reviewed by Harriet Published in 1956, Mamma was the first novel Tutton wrote, though her second and now better known Guard Your Daughters was…
May 27, 2021 Reviewer’s Choice: Twentieth Century Paris (1900-1950) – A Literary Guide for Travellers by Marie-José Gransard While Shiny New Books concentrates on the new, occasionally, we give our reviewers room to share previously published – ie: ‘not Shiny New Books’…
May 25, 2021 Field Work: What Land Does to People and What People Do to Land by Bella Bathurst Review by Liz Dexter “This place, this land, wasn’t a job or a business: it was everything – past and future, identity and rhythm,…
May 25, 2021 Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner Review by Max Dunbar How the Other Half Lie There is a fabulous new genre in commercial fiction. I call it ‘Posh People Getting…
May 21, 2021 Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert Review by Peter Reason Elizabeth Kolbert is a celebrated American journalist, staff writer for the New Yorker. Her work focuses unflinchingly on the ecological…
May 21, 2021 Mr Fortune’s Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner Reviewed by Harriet It can only be good news that Penguin have been reissuing Sylvia Townsend Warner’s admirable novels. I only discovered her writing…
May 20, 2021 The Assistant by Kjell Ola Dahl Translated by Don Bartlett Reviewed by Annabel Kjell Ola Dahl is one of Norway’s foremost crime writers, especially known for his ‘Oslo detectives’ series,…
May 20, 2021 Valentine Ackland: A Transgressive Life by Frances Bingham Reviewed by Gill Davies This is a remarkable book about a remarkable woman. Valentine Ackland (1906-1969) was “transgressive” in so many ways. She was…
May 18, 2021 Come Join Our Disease by Sam Byers Reviewed by Dan Lipscombe Sam Byers is a wonderfully talented author. His imagination and wordplay seemingly know no bounds. However, when you want to…
May 18, 2021 King Arthur’s Death by Michael Smith Reviewed by Rob Spence Last year, I reviewed Michael Smith’s excellent new version of the Middle English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He…
May 13, 2021 The Hard Crowd, Essays 2000-2020, by Rachel Kushner Reviewed by Max Dunbar The Gallery of Souls I’ve Known Many years ago, novelist Rachel Kushner worked in a bar called the Blue Lamp…
May 13, 2021 The Fighter Fell in Love: A Spanish Civil War Memoir by James R. Jump Reviewed by Michael Eaude This is the memoir of a volunteer to the International Brigades, formed to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War…
May 11, 2021 Digging up Britain: A New History in Ten Extraordinary Discoveries by Mike Pitts Reviewed by Liz Dexter “Who are we? Where do we come from? What is Britain, and what does it mean to be British?” This…
May 11, 2021 Anthony Burgess, Collected Poems, edited by Jonathan Mann Reviewed by Rob Spence Inevitably, when Anthony Burgess is mentioned, people who have heard of him will associate him with the notorious novel and…
May 6, 2021 Featherweight by Mick Kitson Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess “A woman has to fight sometimes. It’s as well ya know how.” Annie Loveridge is a fighting woman, and…
May 6, 2021 In the Garden; Essays on Nature and Growing Review by Hayley Anderton This is the first of the Daunt Books essay collections that I’ve read and I’m mostly impressed. The quality of…
May 4, 2021 The Craft of Poetry by Lucy Newlyn Reviewed by Rob Spence Lucy Newlyn is a intriguing literary figure. She had a career as an Oxford don, publishing well-regarded studies of Romantic…
May 4, 2021 Sistersong by Lucy Holland Reviewed by Annabel Lucy Holland’s impeccably researched novel combines the story of a 19th Century murder ballad, ‘The Two Sisters’ with Dark Ages post-Arthurian…
