A Stinging Delight by David Storey
Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2004 I had the great pleasure of meeting David Storey – rugby player, painter, novelist, poet, playwright and filmmaker – who had agreed to let…
The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper
Review by Lory Widmer-Hess Ancient Greece and Rome, which formed the foundation of so much in our Western civilization, have been getting a revisionist look lately. A number of novels…
Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness, by Mark Solms
Review by Terence Jagger This is a fascinating book, one I bought after hearing the author give an inspiring presentation to the Royal Institution. He starts by recounting how his…
Burning Man: The Ascent of D.H. Lawrence by Frances Wilson
Reviewed by Harriet I always feel as if I stood naked for the fire of Almighty God to go through me….I often think of my dear Saint Lawrence on his…
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
Paperback review by Rebecca Foster Curtis Sittenfeld’s sixth novel, a work of alternative history narrated entirely by Hillary Rodham and covering the years between 1970 and the recent past, is…
The Feast by Margaret Kennedy
Reviewed by Harriet Margaret Kennedy has appeared a few times before on Shiny: two of her novels in 2014 [here] and [here] and more recently my own review of her…
Barcelona Dreaming, by Rupert Thomson
Review by Basil Ramsome-Davies Rupert Thomson has been around for quite a while, a prolific and much respected author; this is the first book of his I have read. So…
Miss Browne’s Friend by F M Mayor
Reviewed by Harriet Born in 1872, Flora Macdonald Mayor was the daughter of an Anglican clergyman and classics professor. Perhaps surprisingly, given her background, she became an actress, but abandoned…
Five Fascinating Facts About… Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Compiled by Annabel The Royal Society of Literature is celebrating ‘Dalloway Day‘ today – a Wednesday in the middle of June – when Virginia Woolf’s novel in a day is…
Things Remembered and Things Forgotten by Kyoko Nakajima
Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori and Ian MacDonald Review by Anna Hollingsworth In the short story The Last Obon, Satsuki is mistaken for the ghost of her aunt’s daughter by…
Rabbits by Terry Miles
Review by Annabel As I sat down to start reading this book, a tweet pinged on my phone and I glanced over – someone had commented on a post of…
Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga
Translated by Melanie Mauthner Review by Dorian Stuber The title of Scholastique Mukasonga’s Our Lady of the Nile refers to both a statue of a Black Virgin Mary poised precariously…
At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop
Translated by Anna Moschovakis Review by Tony Malone David Diop’s At Night All Blood Is Black takes the reader back to the battlefields of the First World War, but anyone…
On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason
Translated by Lytton Smith Review by Peter Reason This book focuses on two things that are changing beyond recognition in this era of rapid ecological change: Time and Water. Time…
Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal
Translated by Jessica Moore Reviewed by Annabel Maylis de Kerangal is a novelist whose primary focus is not the characters that people her books, but the subject they’re involved with….
Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack by Richard Ovenden
Review by Liz Dexter The processes of selection, acquisition and cataloguing, as well as of disposal and retention, are never neutral acts. They are done by human beings, working in…
Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life by Alex Christofi
Review by Karen Langley It could be argued that much fiction is in a sense autobiographical, and one man who certainly poured his life into his work, drawing on his…
Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me by John Sutherland
Review by Karen Langley Monica Jones, the subject of a new biography by John Sutherland, is a fascinating figure who, up until now, has generally been discussed in terms of…
Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Why country X? Why language Y? Anyone who has lived abroad or taken up a foreign language will be familiar with those questions. So, too, Polly…
Civilisations by Laurent Binet
Translated by Sam Taylor Review by Max Dunbar Reviewers of fiction, trying to make sense of Laurent Binet’s Civilisations, have reached for video game metaphors. In the Literary Review, James Womack…
Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An Unreliable Memoir, by Marina Warner
Review by Helen Parry In spring 1944 the English officer Esmond Warner attended a party in Bari hosted by a widow, Signora Terzulli, and her four beautiful daughters. One of…
The Muse by Nell Dunn
Review by Annabel There is a particular sub-genre of memoir that almost goes into biography but fundamentally remains a memoir. I’m talking about memoirs of friendships like Tracey Thorn’s latest…
The Nightingale: Notes on a songbird, by Sam Lee
Review by Peter Reason Sam Lee is a renowned song collector, interpreter, and singer of folk songs from Britain and Ireland; he has an abiding interest in wilderness studies and…