Islands of Mercy by Rose Tremain
Reviewed by Harriet Islands of Mercy is set in 1865, and, in a split narrative, covers events in England and Sarawak, in Borneo. Throughout most of the novel, the two…
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Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Imagine a mining town and everything covered in shades of coal, from the people to the buildings to the sky and every single surface. That’s the…
A Sound Mind by Paul Morley
Reviewed by Karen Langley Paul Morley made his name as a music critic for the New Musical Express back in the halcyon punk days of the 1970s and 1980s; a…
The Book Lover’s Quiz Book: Novel Conundrums by Gary Wigglesworth
Reviewed by Annabel Gary Wigglesworth’s twitter feed was something of a godsend on Tuesday evenings during furlough earlier this summer. The former bookseller who now works in publishing had been…
Mr Fox by Barbara Comyns
Reviewed by Harriet It’s exactly ten years since I discovered Barbara Comyns for the first time. Born in 1909, she had an unusual upbringing and a somewhat chequered career, both…
Michael Tippett, The Biography by Oliver Soden
Reviewed by Peter Hobson This is a very long, extensively referenced account of the life and music of Michael Tippett, a composer who is often regarded as someone who never…
The Secret Life of Books: Why They Mean More than Words by Tom Mole
Paperback review by Liz Dexter Tom Mole, as Professor of English Literature and Book History at the University of Edinburgh, is certainly qualified to write this Christmas-present-worthy joy of a…
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth How do you feel about the prospect of someone having sex with their grandfather? And them justifying it by the fact…
The Spirit of the Blitz – edited by Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I thought I’d learnt to check how long a book is before I agreed or offered to review it, but I’m in this case I had…
The Artful Dickens by John Mullan
Reviewed by Harriet Professor John Mullan’s name will be familiar to many readers: he writes regularly in the Guardian and the London Review of Books, is the author of several…
Wintering: A Season With Geese by Stephen Rutt
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Stephen Rutt and his partner move to Dumfries, to a flat near the Solway Firth, just as he’s finishing writing his first (wonderful) book The Seafarers…
Women’s Weird 2: More Strange Stories by Women, 1891-1937, edited by Melissa Edmundson
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women 1890 -1940 was a standout book from last year – it’s still genuinely one of the most unsettling anthologies I’ve…
British Weird, Selected Shorter Fiction 1893-1937 edited by James Machin
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I spent some time looking up the definition of Weird as opposed to Horror in preparation for writing this, and now have the perfect opportunity to…
Bookshop.Org is OPEN in the UK
Please excuse the plug post, but now we’re going back into lockdown it is more important than ever to support our indie bookshops online. From today, there’s a new way…
The Harpy by Megan Hunter
Reviewed by Annabel Megan Hunter’s beautiful and poetic debut novella, The End We Started From (reviewed here for Shiny by Lucy Unwin), the story of a woman about to give…
The Unbearable Bassington by Saki
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long Francesca Bassington sat in the drawing room of her house in Blue Street regaling herself and her estimable brother Henry with China tea and small cress…
Happy Half-Hours: Selected Writings of A.A. Milne
Review by Simon Thomas You might be familiar with the beautiful little hardbacks from Notting Hill Editions, where they select essays and other writings from across the range of an…
The Little Library Christmas by Kate Young
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I’m a proper fan of Kate Young and her Little Library books – they’re a delightful mix of recipes, reflection, and book recommendations, but even so…
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
Translated by Anne Goldstein Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Adolescence can be brutal, and in The Lying Life of Adults Elena Ferrante brings it out in all its ugly passions, grievances…
One Billion Years to the End of the World by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Translated by Antonina W. Bouis Reviewed by Karen Langley Science fiction writing often gets a bad press; dismissed as lightweight genre writing, mocked for some of the horrendous cover art…
The Oxford Book of Theatrical Anecdotes, edited by Gyles Brandreth
Reviewed by Harriet This, obviously, is a book for those who like a good theatrical anecdote. I certainly do, and have been privy to many of them since I was…
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Universe: And Our place within it by Andrew Newsam
Reviewed by Annabel I’ve always loved books about space and I still have my beloved Hamlyn guides on Astronomy and Exploring the Planets by Iain Nicholson from 1970 that got…
Snow by John Banville
Reviewed by Harriet I’m rather ashamed to say that the only one of ‘multi-award-winning’ John Banville’s books I’ve read before is The Black-Eyed Blonde, which he published in 2014 under…
Kitted Out: Style and Youth Culture in the Second World War by Caroline Young
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This extremely well-researched and authoritative book takes us through the Second World War, in the UK, the US, the Far and Middle East and Europe, through…