Number 11 by Jonathan Coe
Reviewed by Annabel I was lucky enough to have discovered Jonathan Coe fairly early on in his career, back when the paperback edition of What a Carve Up! was published…
Reviewed by Annabel I was lucky enough to have discovered Jonathan Coe fairly early on in his career, back when the paperback edition of What a Carve Up! was published…
Reviewed by Harriet I can’t remember ever enjoying writing a novel more than Career of Evil…Robert Galbraith has always felt like my own private playground. So says JK Rowling at the…
Reviewed by Julie Barham It is probably a good thing to sometimes read outside our comfort zone. For me, Paradise was such a book. It is a reprint, though originally published as…
Reviewed by Anna Barber There’s often a moment in the middle of reading a reprint when you wonder how a story like this could ever have been forgotten. Perhaps the…
Reviewed by Harriet I can empathise with people who are driven by dreadful impulses. I think to be driven to want to kill must be such a terrible burden. I…
Reviewed by Kirsty Doole Despite being a proud Scot and committed bookworm, there are an embarrassing number of great Scottish novels that I am yet to read. Vintage Classics have…
Reviewed by Simon As Strangers Here (published in 1960) is set against the backdrop of 1950s Belfast and the terror of the warring factions of those who called themselves Protestants or…
Reviewed by Bookgazing Scott Westerfeld is undeniably an imaginative author, even in the context of the SFF world where authors produce fun and wild new concepts every other day. His Uglies series…
Reviewed by Simon Max Beerbohm’s name is known today, if at all, as the author of Zuleika Dobson – a curious sort of modernised Greek myth, where a preternaturally beautiful woman bewitches…
Reviewed by Harriet First published in America in 2014, Andrew Mayne’s debut novel is just out in the UK. If I described this novel as ‘detective uses magic to solve…
Reviewed by Annabel Ranjit Bolt is well known as a translator and playwright. He came to prominence when two of his translations of French comedies by Pierre Corneille, The Liar and The Illusion,…
Reviewed by Helen Parry I’ve always loved the Oxford Companions, ever since I first encountered the Companion to English Literature about twenty-five years ago. They’re very easy to use and the alphabetically…
Paperback review by Laura Marriott Us is David Nicholls’ fourth novel and the follow up to 2009’s surprise hit One Day. Nicholls is an award winning author and screenwriter whose earlier books…
Reviewed by Judith Wilson I’d been introduced to Andrew Miller’s writing via his richly evocative Costa Award-winning novel, Pure (2011), set in and around a cemetery in eighteenth century Paris. So I…
Reviewed by Annabel. As picture books for grown ups go, Mythology is the business. Now available in soft covers, this nine inches square book yields glorious pictorial spreads from the very moment you…
Reviewed by Gill Davies This is the first novel by Rod Reynolds, a British author who is working comfortably within the conventions and settings of American crime fiction. I was…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton It was reading Jancis Robinson’s Confessions of a Wine Lover which initially pushed me to learn more about wine, and the second edition of The Oxford Companion to Wine that…
Reviewed by Harriet Reading continuations of series by celebrated dead authors is always going to be a bit of a gamble. I’ve had some less than great experiences, notably with…
Report by Linda Boa After arriving somewhat later than planned in Stirling, all I wanted to do was find the lovely guesthouse I was staying in and catch some sleep….
Reviewed by Simon I have to confess that when I picked up Latest Readings, I knew very little about Clive James’ life and work. And, indeed, when I put it down…
Reviewed by Victoria The first thing – inescapable – that you notice about this book is what a beautiful object it is. With gilt-tipped pages, and a midnight blue cover…
Reviewed by Victoria This book broke a late-summer reading slump I was wallowing in, and I am as grateful to it as a reader can be, who has despaired over…
Questions by Helen Skinner 1. The Moor’s Account is narrated by the Moroccan slave, Mustafa al-Zamori, also known as Estebanico. What made you decide to write the novel from Estebanico’s point of…
Introduced by Harriet It’s time for the third round of The Shiny Book Club – we’re posting the questions now, and the discussion will start in our Extra Shiny issue…