James Joyce by Edna O’Brien
Review by Rob Spence Edna O’Brien’s position as one of the most significant modern Irish writers is undisputed, and here, in this reissue of her 1999 short biography, she tackles…
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Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
Translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins Review by David Hebblethwaite Winter in Sokcho is a first in several senses: the debut novel by French-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, and the first…
The Author’s Effects by Nicola J. Watson
Reviewed by Harriet This splendid and fascinating book – subtitled ‘On Writer’s House Museums’ – has been a long time in the making, and is certainly none the worse for…
Red Sixty Seven, curated by Kit Jewitt
Review by Peter Reason When I was a small boy, back in the 1950s, I remember going on Sunday School trips to the seaside. Once we were out of London,…
Miss Austen by Gill Hornby
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth There’s a point in Miss Austen where I felt that my sins had been found out. Cassandra, Jane Austen’s now elderly sister, tells a younger relation…
Square Haunting by Francesca Wade
Review by Karen Langley “Square Haunting” was published to much fanfare and acclaim recently; a book which looks at the lives of five notable women centred around a specific Bloomsbury…
Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton
Review by Annabel Anyone who works in a school these days will be familiar with ‘lockdown’ procedures, with code reds being the ones you hope you’ll only ever have to…
Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford
Reviewed by Ali Business as Usual is an early work from the formidably productive writing partnership of Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford (both pseudonyms) – and it is utterly delightful. A…
Snow, Dog, Foot by Claudio Morandini
Translated by J. Ockenden Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Who could resist the title of this Italian bestseller? A black comedy about a hermit in the Italian Alps, it starts off…
Kallocain by Karin Boye
Translated by David McDuff Review by Karen Langley Our modern world often seems to be getting very close to a dystopian nightmare, and most of our visions of that kind…
My Caravaggio Style by Doris Langley Moore
Review by Simon It’s always exciting when Dean Street Press announce the next batch of novels in their Furrowed Middlebrow series, chosen by Scott at the excellent Furrowed Middlebrow blog….
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
Review by Laura Tisdall Jai is nine years old and lives with his family in the slums of New Delhi. He loves watching reality cop shows, especially Police Patrol (presumably a fictionalised…
Veronica by Veronica Lake
Reviewed by Harriet I wonder how many people today have even heard of Veronica Lake. There was a time, though a relatively brief one, in which she was widely celebrated,…
It Would be Night in Caracas by Karina Sainz Borgo
Translated by Elizabeth Bryer Reviewed by Susan Osborne Venezuelan writer Karina Sainz Borgo’s It Would Be Night in Caracas is one of three novels published to launch HarperVia, a new…
Abigail by Magda Szabo
Translated by Len Rix Reviewed by Harriet This novel, by the award-winning Hungarian novelist Magda Szabo, was first published in 1970. However, it is set in 1943-4, a crucial period…
Somewhere Becoming Rain: Collected Writings on Philip Larkin by Clive James
Review by Karen Langley My love of the poetry of Philip Larkin is no secret; I’ve written about him numerous times on my own blog, and most recently my encounter…
Learning Languages in Early Modern England by John Gallagher
Review by Liz Dexter Has it ever struck you that before England obtained its empire, no one else in the world bothered to speak the language? Did you realise what…
Postscript to Poison & Shadows Before by Dorothy Bowers
Reviewed by Harriet I have a special liking for vintage crime novels and am always pleased when I discover an author previously unknown to me. This has happened a lot…
Of Cats and Elfins by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Reviewed by Harriet Just over a year ago I reviewed the newly published Handheld Press edition of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Kingdoms of Elfin, a collection of strange, glittering, fascinating stories,…
Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide, by Barry Forshaw
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies When I started teaching popular fiction courses forty years ago, having always been more drawn to Jesse James than to Henry James, there were sneers aplenty…
Art Essentials: Impressionism by Ralph Skea
Review by Liz Dexter Another volume in the excellently done Art Essentials series, this volume on Impressionism is written by Ralph Skea, an artist and academic who has published several…
So Brightly at the Last by Ian Shircore
Review by Rob Spence In one important respect, this book was outdated at the moment it was published: its subject, Clive James, having endured a terminal illness for ten years,…
Why Women Read Fiction by Helen Taylor
Review by Gill Davies Women read a lot more fiction than men; they also buy more books, attend writers’ events, blog, exchange ideas, and form reading groups. Helen Taylor’s research…
Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Stanislaw Lem
Translated by Louis Iribarne Review by Karen Langley Polish writer Stanislaw Lem was a prolific author of science fiction works, the most well known of which is “Solaris” (which has…