Spotlight on Publishers: Europa Editions
Questions for Daniela at Europa Editions 1. Tell us about the genesis of Europa Editions. How did the publishing house come into being? Europa Editions was founded in New York…
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Shiny New Books
33 Revolutions by Canek Sánchez Guevara
Translated by Howard Curtis Reviewed by Annabel Canek Sánchez Guevara was Che Guevara’s grandson. Was, because he died in early 2015 from complications after a heart operation – he was…
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Reviewed by Harriet It’s one thing to read about detectives, but quite another trying to be one. I’ve always loved whodunits – I’ve not just edited them, I’ve read them…
A Novel Calling – Books That Were Written Just For Me
By Alice Farrant Realistically, I know searching for signs in the everyday is silly. Stepping over three drains in a row doesn’t cause bad luck, and if something bad happens…
Ada’s Algorithm by James Essinger
Review by Peter Hobson One of the most accomplished women of the nineteenth century and little known until recently outside mathematical and computer science circles, Ada Lovelace is the subject…
Ghost Stories by E.F.Benson
Reviewed by Julie Barham An historical entertainment? When I was first asked to read E.F.Benson’s Ghost Stories, I was a little concerned as I have got a very vivid imagination, and…
The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler
Translated by Charlotte Collins Reviewed by Susan Osborne It’s a both a joy and a worry when a second novel appears on the horizon following one quite so spectacularly good…
The Wrong Case by James Crumley
Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies First published in 1975 – the year the NLF took Saigon and expelled the US from Vietnam – The Wrong Case is deservedly, though posthumously, reissued. It…
Cookbooks for Christmas
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Despite having run out of shelf space for more cookbooks some time ago, they remain one of my favourite things to give and receive at Christmas,…
The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church
Reviewed by Annabel In 1941 Meridian ‘Meri’ Wallace wins a place at university in Chicago to study ornithology. There she dates Jerry – and they have fun – but Meri…
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Reviewed by Harriet Time was not something then we thought of as an item that possessed an ending, but something that would go on forever, all rested and stopped in…
A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
Reviewed by Annabel. Although this is the second book in a series, given that its two main characters were subsidiary supporting ones in its predecessor, you could read it as…
The Promised Land: An American Reading List
Compiled by Eleanor Franzén So, the presidential election of 2016. As with the elections of 2012 and 2008, I will be telling my children exactly where I was when I…
The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley
Reviewed by Harriet In the pantheon of detective fiction there is nothing quite like it. So writes Martin Edwards in his introduction to the British Library’s new edition of this…
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Reviewed by Karen Langley There can be very few people in the reading world who haven’t heard of Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated detective, Sherlock Holmes; in fact, his fame has…
Deep Water by Christine Poulson
Reviewed by Gill Davies I was very pleased to find a crime novel with no paedophiles or serial killers, or – for that matter – without a feisty female detective…
Millers Valley by Anna Quindlen
Reviewed by Adèle Geras Anna Quindlen is an American writer who ought to be much better known in this country. Her last novel, Still Life With Breadcrumbs (reviewed here), is very good indeed…
The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This book, based loosely on work Perry has done in the media and on television, looks at modern masculinity and how it can possibly be reworked…
The Gradual by Christopher Priest
Reviewed by David Harris This was the first of Christopher Priest’s books that I’d read. While I gather from other reviews that it’s particularly accessible for him and so probably…
The Captain with the Whiskers by Benedict Kiely
Reviewed by Julie Barham When the old captain died the family went strange and it wasn’t with grief, and if you want to know why, you should talk to somebody…
Loose Canon: the extraordinary songs of Clive James and Pete Atkin by Ian Shircore
Review by Rob Spence It’s now over forty years since I discovered the songs of Pete Atkin and Clive James. In a wonderful series of albums in the late sixties…
The Girl in Green by Derek D. Miller
Reviewed by Gill Davies In the past, I have hesitated to read a novel that uses dreadful contemporary events as its plot and thematic focus, in case it feels exploitative…
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Reviewed by Simon It might seem strange to include a novel in the reprints section that is only 13 years old – but Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has recently had all…
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Paperback review by Naomi Eileen might ‘look like a girl you’d expect to see on a city bus, reading some clothbound book from the library about plants or geography’ but if…