The Unfinished Harauld Hughes by Richard Ayoade
Review by Annabel Underneath the comic, often socially awkward, character exterior of Richard Ayoade lives a real intellectual and talented writer, who puts on a clever act to fool us…
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Dickens: The Funny Bits, compiled by R.J. Cruikshank
Review by Karen Langley Victorian novelist Charles Dickens is an iconic figure; known for his chunky novels, filled with vivid characters, social commentary and campaigning, he’s also occasionally dismissed because…
Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson
Reviewed by Harriet He had spent a good two weeks being sensible and mature, and then he bought a Land Rover Defender instead. It was a rugged, blokey kind of…
This Volcanic Isle: The Violent Processes that Forged the British Landscape, by Robert Muir-Wood
Review by Liz Dexter We now realize that throughout the past 66 million years, this land has been far from quiescent. It has been split by magma-filled cracks, wracked by…
Dear Dickhead by Virginie Despentes
Translated by Frank Wynne Review by Annabel I would never have predicted that Virginie Despentes, creator/director of the 2000 rape-revenge novel and film Baise-moi, author of the superb ‘State of…
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
Reviewed by Harriet I discovered the wonderful Elizabeth Strout back in 2017, when I reviewed My Name is Lucy Barton for Shiny. Since then I’ve reviewed another four of her…
Birds, Beasts and Bedlam: Turning My Farm into an Ark for Lost Species by Ben Gow
Review by Liz Dexter If you wish to bludgeon badgers or beavers or remove peregrine falcons and hen harrier chicks from their nests, a way can be found. If you…
Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd
Reviewed by Harriet William Boyd’s latest novel has been almost overwhelmingly greeted with admiration and praise. ‘A Spy Story to rival Restless’ is the Guardian’s headline, harking back to Boyd’s…
Material: The Art of Handcrafting Beautiful Objects in a Digital Age by Nick Kary
Review by Frances Spurrier Kary starts his book by saying that he wants to help understand the relationship we all have fashioning our lives within the material structure of the…
Portrait of the Art Dealer as a Young Man: New York in the Sixties, by Michael Findlay
Review by Annabel My fascination with the 1960s (the decade in which I was a child), will never die. Add in the world of art and a New York setting…
Book to Screen: In Development, 2024 and Beyond
By Arti After looking at forthcoming releases in my last post, we turn to books that are being adapted and are currently in development or in production. James (2024) by Percival Everett…
Rare Singles by Benjamin Myers
Review by Annabel Myers is one of those British authors who writes something totally different every time he puts pen to paper, with the exception that almost all of his…
The Watermark by Sam Mills
Reviewed by Harriet Sam Mills is not a prolific writer, but her books are well worth waiting for. In 2012 she published The Quiddity of Will Self, which she described…
The Ghost Lake by Wendy Pratt
Review by Peter Reason Ghost Lake is a paleolithic, extinct lake that lies between the Yorkshire Wolds and Scarborough. In prehistoric times it was a real lake, the centre of…
Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation by Emily van Duyne
Written by Victoria Best There’s a lot going on in Emily van Duyne’s intriguingly hybrid work on Sylvia Plath, a book that has its feet in scholarship and its head…
Warsaw Tales, selected and translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Review by Rob Spence The only time I have been in Warsaw was in 1988, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. …
Books into Film: Fall 2024
By Arti The annual film festival season kicks off in late August, and come September, there are arrays of new offerings on streaming platforms. I haven’t done actual research, but…
Table for Two by Amor Towles
Review by Annabel Until this year Towles has delighted his readers with novels of increasing thickness including A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway, both of which I adored,…
Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton
Reviewed by Harriet The spring night drew them into its deepening embrace. The ripples of the lake had gradually widened and faded into a silken smoothness, and high above the mountains the…
The King’s Loot: The Greatest Royal Jewellery Heist in History by Richard Wallace
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long It is always misleading to read the serialisation of a book in the newspapers. The paper in question will always focus on the more sensational aspects…
Kala by Colin Walsh
Review by Annabel Kala was the literary thriller to be seen reading last summer when first published. A high-profile debut from a young Irish author, I saw many favourable reviews…
All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud and Fine Art by Orlando Whitfield
Reviewed by Harriet This is the second book about fraud I’ve reviewed this year, the first being Joseph Hone’s impressive The Book Forger. Obviously, as you can tell from the…
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Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain by Corinne Fowler
In expanding and resourcing public understandings of the countryside’s colonial past, we can tell our islands’ stories and address colonial legacies from a position of knowledge rather than fear. Corinne…
Airplane Mode: Travels in the Ruins of Tourism by Shahnaz Habib
Review by Liz Dexter How intrepid you are as a traveler depends, at least partly, on how entitled you feel to travel. On whether there’s an army base nearby with…