June 29, 2021 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…
June 29, 2021 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…
June 24, 2021 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….
June 24, 2021 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…
June 22, 2021 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…
June 22, 2021 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…
June 17, 2021 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…
June 17, 2021 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,…
June 16, 2021 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…
June 15, 2021 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…
June 15, 2021 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…
June 10, 2021 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…
June 10, 2021 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…
June 8, 2021 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…
June 8, 2021 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,…
June 7, 2021 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…
June 7, 2021 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…
June 4, 2021 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…
June 4, 2021 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…
June 3, 2021 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….
June 3, 2021 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…
June 1, 2021 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…
June 1, 2021 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…
