Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Handheld Press are fast becoming my favourite independent press. Their book choices are consistently interesting, their editions well produced with particularly good introductions. I’m also going to…
Reviewed by Harriet Another very welcome addition to the new British Library Women Writers series, Dangerous Ages was published in 1921. It’s a fascinating novel because it is both a…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Ever since I read Findings sometime around a decade ago I’ve viewed anything with Kathleen Jamie’s name attached to it with interest and it’s probably fair…
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is a wonderful book, and the real title is the sub-title: A Neuroscientist’s Guide to Ageing Well. It is not in any sense a self…
Reviewed by Gill Davies Kate Grenville’s latest novel is a wonderful continuation of her investigation of Australian history and the people who made it. In her best known novel, The…
Reviewed by Harriet I was very late in the day in discovering the novels of Tana French. I’d tried her first novel, In the Woods, some years ago and for some…
Translated by Frank Wynne Reviewed by Annabel Members of the Shiny reviewing team share previously published books from their shelves that they’re reading this summer… This book is subtitled ‘A…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter As you would expect from an Oxford Illustrated History of … this is a sumptuous production, world-wide in scope and bringing in chapters from experts from…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton At the risk of speaking too soon, lockdown finally seems to be lifting in Leicester just in time to catch the dregs of summer (our John…
Reviewed by Harriet This funny, moving, absorbing, thought-provoking novel is about marriage, lust, friendship, ageing, memory, philosophy, and quantum mechanics. The film had been about a serial killer, to Gerald’s…
Reviewed by Gill Davies London in 1963, despite some remaining scars of wartime, is busy re-inventing itself with skyscrapers rising over bomb sites, American music and movies, trendy coffee bars,…
Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch Reviewed by Eleanor Updegraff By day, Paulus Hochgatterer is a child psychiatrist – something that absolutely shows in his writing. The Austrian author’s…
Translated by Stephen Snyder Paperback review by Annabel Yoko Ogawa’s latest novel has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize: the winner to be announced on August 26th. The competition…
Reviewed by Harriet Ed’s Note: Six years after its publication in hardback, Mendelsund’s Cover gets a paperback release, so we are reposting Harriet’s original review. Every choice of color, every…
Review by Karen Langley M. John Harrison has been described as one of the UK’s best-kept secrets, a hidden jewel in the literary crown of this country. Considered by many…
Review by Annabel William Shaw, former award-winning music journalist has, in recent years, become one of the UK’s must-read crime authors. Although he’d already written a well-received detective series set…
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 of five poetry collections – an…
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 Bigtree’s world is falling apart. After…
Translated from Spanish by Rahul Bery Reviewed by Michael Eaude Too often, reviews are distorted because they are written by someone who knows and likes the author’s work. One of…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This sumptuous book, that has a lot of content, in terms of both text and image, is a real treat – the only book so far…
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 reviewed for Shiny here). His exploration…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster The Wainwright Prize longlists for writing on UK nature and global conservation themes were announced in early June and will be whittled down to shortlists on…
Reviewed by Harriet Today, Jane Austen is regarded as one of the most important writers in the English language, often spoken of in the same sentence as Shakespeare. It wasn’t…
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 because it was well recommended by…
