August 4, 2020 Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Natasha Trethewey is an English professor and former U.S. Poet Laureate familiar to me from Native Guard (2006), her third…
August 4, 2020 My Summer Reading: Swamplandia by Karen Russell Members of the Shiny reviewing team share previously published books from their shelves that they’re reading this summer… Review by Laura Tisdall Thirteen-year-old Ava…
July 30, 2020 Rolling Fields by David Trueba Translated from Spanish by Rahul Bery Reviewed by Michael Eaude Too often, reviews are distorted because they are written by someone who knows and…
July 30, 2020 Grayson Perry by Jacky Klein & Grayson Perry Reviewed by Liz Dexter This sumptuous book, that has a lot of content, in terms of both text and image, is a real treat…
July 28, 2020 Notes From An Apocalypse by Mark O’Connell Review by Annabel O’Connell is an Irish journalist who won the Wellcome Book Prize for his previous title, To Be a Machine (which I…
July 28, 2020 Three Wainwright Prize Nominees: Books by Patrick Barkham, Patrick Laurie & Jini Reddy Reviewed by Rebecca Foster The Wainwright Prize longlists for writing on UK nature and global conservation themes were announced in early June and will…
July 23, 2020 Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics by Tom Keymer Reviewed by Harriet Today, Jane Austen is regarded as one of the most important writers in the English language, often spoken of in the…
July 23, 2020 All Adults Here by Emma Straub Reviewed by Ann For the second time in a matter of weeks I’ve read a book that I wouldn’t normally have picked up simply…
July 21, 2020 My Summer Reading: Gawain and The Green Knight – Michael Smith Members of the Shiny reviewing team share previously published books from their shelves that they’re reading now… Review by Rob Spence Readers of Shiny…
July 21, 2020 Summer’s Lease by Thom Eagle Review by Hayley Anderton I’ve heard universally good things about Thom Eagle’s first book, First, Catch and it has a clutch of awards to…
July 16, 2020 Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell Reviewed by Harriet Grief fills the room up of my absent child,Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty…
July 14, 2020 Root Stem Leaf Flower by Gill Meller Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Whilst writing this I’m still officially in full lockdown in Leicester. I don’t know what it’s like on the outside,…
July 14, 2020 The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany Review by Helen Parry I first read The King of Elfland’s Daughter five years ago, but this ‘fine, strange, almost forgotten novel’, as Neil…
July 9, 2020 Expectation by Anna Hope Review by Max Dunbar Looking back at her hard living past, singer Florence Welch writes in Vogue: I wonder if my young self would be…
July 9, 2020 Into the Tangled Bank by Lev Parikian Review by Liz Dexter Lev Parikian is a conductor and, more recently, a birdwatcher, and you might have seen or read his book on…
July 7, 2020 The Coral Merchant: Essential Stories by Joseph Roth Review by Eleanor Updegraff Translated by Ruth Martin Austrian author Joseph Roth is best known – if indeed he is known at all –…
July 2, 2020 Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty Reviewed by Rebecca Foster When the Wainwright Prize longlists (for writing on UK nature and global conservation themes) were announced in early June, Dara…
July 2, 2020 Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams Paperback Review by Liz Dexter This Sunday Times bestseller, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and Longlisted for the Women’s Prize…
June 30, 2020 Chitambo by Hagar Olsson Translated by Sarah Death Reviewed by Karen Langley When we think of Nordic fiction nowadays, we’re probably inevitably aware of the preponderance of Scandi-crime;…
June 30, 2020 Crisis by Karin Boye Translated by Amanda Doxtater Reviewed by Karen Langley When we think of Nordic fiction nowadays, we’re probably inevitably aware of the preponderance of Scandi-crime;…
June 25, 2020 This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald Reviewed by Harriet It’s been many years since I read anything by Scott Fitzgerald, but he used to be a favourite of mine. So…
June 25, 2020 Westwind by Ian Rankin Paperback review by Rob Spence It comes as a bit of a shock to realise that Ian Rankin has now published well over thirty…
June 23, 2020 I Remember by Georges Perec Introduced, Translated, Annotated, Edited and Indexed by Philip Terry and David Bellos Reviewed by Karen Langley Regular readers of Shiny New Books may recall…
June 23, 2020 The End of Me by Alfred Hayes Reviewed by Annabel Hayes, who was born in London but emigrated to the US as a child, first came to attention as a poet…
June 18, 2020 The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo Translated by Yumiko Yamazaki Review by Terence Jagger This Japanese detective thriller is set in the 1940s and so is relatively ‘modern’, but only…
