Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie
Review by Peter Reason Kathleen Jamie is primarily known as a poet, but her prose writing is eagerly anticipated and widely acclaimed. Surfacing is the third in a loose trilogy…
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The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Reviewed by Harriet Ann Patchett believes in goodness, arguably a most unfashionable belief in today’s world. In the bookstore she runs, there’s a sign: ‘What good shall I do this…
Art Essentials: Street Art by Simon Armstrong
Review by Liz Dexter The Art Essentials series aims to be engaging, accessible, authoritative, richly illustrated and expertly written and conceived, and with a bookseller and book collector who has…
The Second Sleep by Robert Harris
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies In his indispensable primer What Is History? E. H. Carr underlines the point that ‘History’ has a double meaning: both the events, or facts, of the past, and…
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Reviewed by Ali Hope Although I have pre-ordered new releases a few times before it’s not something I do very often – and never have I felt swept along by…
Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
Review by Simon As the cover of Confessions of a Bookseller tells us, Bythell is an international bestseller. A couple of years ago, The Diary of a Bookseller was a…
The Pursuit of Art: Travels, Encounters and Revelations by Martin Gayford
Review by Liz Dexter “The pursuit of art is a journey that never stops: the more you see, the more you want to see.” First of all much kudos to…
The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy
Review by Annabel Levy came to the forefront of our attention when her 2011 novel Swimming Home was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, something she’d repeat with her 2016…
The Confession by Jessie Burton
Review by Anna Hollingsworth Capturing an era with impeccable accuracy is a challenge that anyone writing about the past must face; there will always be that critic who enjoys combing…
The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim
Introduced by Juliane Römhild, with notes by Kate Macdonald Review by Karen Langley Elizabeth von Arnim is probably best known nowadays for her novel The Enchanted April, a warm and delightful story…
Rough Magic: Riding the World’s Wildest Horse Race by Lara Prior-Palmer
Review by Liz Dexter Lara is by her own account a bit scatter-brained. She’s been described as away with the fairies, didn’t see the point of school past a certain…
Moonlighting: Beethoven and Literary Modernism, by Nathan Waddell
Review by Rob Spence When the newly-elected Brexit party MEPs took their place at the European Parliament in June, they used the opening ceremony as a stunt, turning their backs…
Futurekind: Design by and for the People by Robert Phillips
Review by Liz Dexter Robert Phillips is a senior tutor on the Design Products course at the Royal College of Art, as well as being an award-winning product designer in…
Machines in the Head: Selected Short Writing by Anna Kavan
Review by Karen Langley There was quite a resurgence of interest in Anna Kavan’s writing last year with the release of not one, but three, different editions of her classic…
The House Opposite by Barbara Noble
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long It sounds odd to begin a book review with the statement that I do not like contemporary literature. I never have. And it is not because…
Devotion by Madeline Stevens
Reviewed by Harriet ‘A dangerous novel – sharp, glittering and sexy’: so says the quotation on the cover of Madeline Stevens’ debut novel. I’m not sure that I would have…
Sanctuary by Luca D’Andrea
Translated by Howard Curtis and Katherine Gregor Review by Basil Ransome-Davies Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ‘em/And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so, ad…
The Remarkable Life of the Skin by Monty Lyman
Review by Simon. The number of science books I’ve read can be numbered on my fingers, and number of science books I’ve read that weren’t written by Oliver Sacks is nil. Until…
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Review by Annabel Those who’ve visited Shiny New Books before may know of my passion for the novels of Becky Chambers, one of the most distinctive new voices in Science…
Beastings by Benjamin Myers
Reviewed by Kim Forrester Stories told in strong, distinctive voices using sparse, pared-back prose don’t come much better than Benjamin Myers’ Beastings, which has just been reissued by Bloomsbury. Originally published in…
Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
Review by Jane Carter I fell in love with Diane Setterfield’s first book, I was disappointed by her second; but when I saw the title of this third novel I…
Shiny Flash Fiction by Simon
We have a little treat for you today. Our Shiny Editor at Large, Simon, occasionally writes pieces of flash fiction, which he has published on his own blog. He kindly…
Belfast Stories, edited by Paul McVeigh & Laura Frank
Review by Laura Marriott In Donegall Square, in the centre of Belfast, Lisa is working in the Welcome Centre. Tourists flock in searching for Game of Thrones sites and she…
Flames by Robbie Arnott
Review by Susan Osborne Tasmanian writer Robbie Arnott’s Flames is not an easy book to write about. It’s quite some way out of my usual literary territory, steeped as it…