What Do I Know? by Michel de Montaigne
Translated by David Coward Review by Karen Langley The essay as a form of writing has existed for centuries, and one of its pre-eminent practitioners was the French author Michel…
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Shiny New Books
Shiny Prize Season – Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck – International Booker Prize
Translated by Michael Hofmann Review by Susan Osborne Jenny Erpenbeck’s novels offer much food for thought on the events that have shaped modern Germany. Opening in 1986, Kairos charts an…
Shiny Prize Season – A Flat Place by Noreen Masud – Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction
Reviewed by Simon Thomas The world is probably divided into two people: those who find the idea of a book about flat landscapes appealing and those who don’t. I suspect…
Shiny Prize Season – Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson – Dylan Thomas Prize
Review by Susan Osborne Beginning in 2010, Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Small Worlds is a beautiful, eloquent exploration of love, loss and finding a place of safety for a person of…
Shiny Prize Season – The Coiled Serpent by Camilla Grudova – Dylan Thomas Prize
Review by Annabel The longlist for this year’s Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize is truly eclectic, including poetry and short stories from all over the world alongside novels. After being…
Shiny Prize Season – Penance by Eliza Clark – Dylan Thomas Prize
Review by Laura Tisdall In her debut, Boy Parts, Eliza Clark brilliantly demolished the ‘disaster woman’ trope with her portrait of Irina, a deliciously callous young woman who’s on the prowl for…
Selected Letters of Wilfred Owen, edited by Jane Potter
Review by Rob Spence If you attended a British secondary school at any time from the late nineteen sixties until the present day, at some point you will have encountered…
To the Dogs by Louise Welsh
Review by Annabel For Welsh’s ninth novel, she stays in Glasgow and it is a thriller, but this is not a third outing for her reluctant crime-solving auctioneer Rilke (cf:…
The Future of Trust by Ros Taylor – blogtour
The Futures Series from indie publisher Melville House UK recently launched with four titles that couldn’t be more different from each other: going from Songwriting, to Trust, to War Crimes…
Marcel Proust by Michael Wood
Review by Rob Spence It’s not often that one gets the chance to begin a review with a boast, so I’ll get it over with now: I have read À…
Human Origins: A Short History, by Sarah Wild
Review by Liz Dexter I have […] tried to highlight how much our understanding of human origins has changed – and continues to change – and how, in some ways,…
Fear Stalks the Village by Ethel Lina White
Reviewed by Harriet The village was beautiful. It was enfolded in a hollow of the Downs, and wrapped up snugly – first, in a floral shawl of gardens, and then,…
Charles III: New King, New Court: The Inside Story, by Robert Hardman
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long There is a plethora of journalists who are labelled Royal Experts and I sometimes wonder how you reach these giddy heights, if that is how you…
In Italy, by Cynthia Zarin
Review by Rob Spence This is a curious little book, which shouldn’t really work, but does, offering the reader a delightful series of fresh impressions gleaned from the writer’s engagement…
Dublin Tales, edited by Paul Delaney and Eve Patton
Reviewed by Harriet If you gave me a choice between a collection of short stories and a novel, I’d choose the novel every time. I suppose it’s something to do…
Local: A Search for Nearby Nature and Wilderness by Alastair Humphreys
We have just this one tiny planet to live on, now and for the foreseeable future. We must care for it, and use its resources wisely, sustainability, and fairly. If…
Jan Morris: Life From Both Sides, by Paul Clements
Review by Liz Dexter My hope is that this biography will send readers back to Jan Morris’s books, to either reread them of, for those who have yet to discover…
The Trials of Lila Dalton by L.J. Shepherd
Review by Gill Davies This is a first novel by a practising barrister and is billed as “a legal thriller with a psychological twist”. It comes with plaudits from –…
A Year and a Day by Phillip Lopate
Review by Karen Langley The coming of the Internet and the development of blogging at the turn of the 21st century led to a resurgence of the personal essay, which…
Argylle by Elly Conway
Review by Annabel Let me explain. This Thursday, a film called Argylle reaches our cinema screens in the UK; you may even have seen the trailer (IMDB link here). This…
The Long-Winded Lady by Maeve Brennan
Review by Karen Langley There has been a resurgence of interest in the fiction writing of author Maeve Brennan recently, with her short stories in particular having gained much critical…
Shot with Crimson by Nicola Upson
Reviewed by Harriet This is the eleventh novel in Nicola Upson’s Josephine Tey historical crime series; we’ve reviewed four of them on here as well as her standalone fictional biography…
Shakespeare: The Man who Pays the Rent, by Judi Dench
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long If I had my way every single teacher in the land who is attempting to teach Shakespeare should have a copy of this to hand as,…
Day by Michael Cunningham
Review by Simon A new novel by Michael Cunningham is cause for celebration. I’ve read and loved all his novels – give or take a not-to-my-taste venture into science fiction…