Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
Reviewed by Victoria In 2013, Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, to put on the mantlepiece alongside her 2009 Man Booker International award, the National Book Critics…
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Sophie and the Sibyl: A Victorian Romance by Patricia Duncker
Reviewed by Helen Parry It is 1872 and Max Duncker, handsome, young and irresponsible, is blessed with a not-too-onerous role in the publishing company he shares with his elder brother…
Sweetland by Michael Crummey
Reviewed by Victoria Moses Sweetland is an ornery, tough-skinned, self-sufficient, stubborn old man and he’s also a remarkably tenacious and vital force of life in Michael Crummey’s Robinson Crusoe-esque novel….
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
Reviewed by Victoria If I ever get to meet Matt Haig, the first thing I would like to do, now I’ve read his book, is give him a hug. I’m…
The Whirlpool by George Gissing
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton No matter how many classics I read it never fails to surprise me how little people, or even society, seem to change. The realism of The Whirlpool reminded…
Neverhome by Laird Hunt
Reviewed by Harriet I was strong and he was not so it was me went to war to defend the Republic. I stepped across the border out of Indiana into…
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black (YA)
Reviewed by Bookgazing Holly Black is one of the reigning queens of modern gothic. Her novel The Coldest Girl in Coldtown presented an original, nightmarish vampire world that mixed garish tourist stops,…
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Reviewed by Stefanie Hollmichel I first read Orlando by Virginia Woolf many years ago. Fresh in love with Woolf’s writing and having just learned about her romance with Vita Sackville-West, I read…
Weathering by Lucy Wood
Reviewed by Judith Wilson I began reading Weathering whilst staying on a Cornish estuary within sight of the sea, on a cold, damp day. This was fortuitous as the book is set…
Reading the World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer by Ann Morgan
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Ann Morgan is a freelance writer for the Guardian, among other publications, and also part of a dedicated tribe of book bloggers. She spent 2011 on a…
The River by Rumer Godden
Reviewed by Kate Gardner This novel (novella really – even bulked out with short stories, an introduction and a preface it’s still barely 200 pages) explores childhood, and specifically that…
Naked at the Albert Hall by Tracey Thorn
Reviewed by Annabel After the success of her memoir Bedsit Disco Queen (which I reviewed here) in which she told us how she joined a band and had a brilliant…
Dry Bones in the Valley by Tom Bouman
Reviewed by Gill Davies This is a very enjoyable novel, in the American crime genre but with lots of other things going on too. It has a lively style, some…
Leaving Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller
Reviewed by Victoria Writing a family memoir can be a tricky business in these days of ever more sensitively judgemental readers. There’s a subset who disapproves of anything that smacks…
Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris
Reviewed by Victoria In this outstanding work of cinema history, Mark Harris follows the fortunes of five big name Hollywood directors who enlisted in the wake of Pearl Harbour to…
The Reluctant Hostess by Ethelind Fearon
Reviewed by Simon I have a definite weakness for spoof etiquette guides and the like – such as Bed Manners, reviewed in the third issue of Shiny New Books – and…
Memoirs of a Professional Cad by George Sanders
Reviewed by Lyn Baines In an Afterword to this new edition of George Sanders’ memoir, his niece, Ulla Watson, describes him as the opposite to the cads and bounders he played…
All I Know Now by Carrie Hope Fletcher
Reviewed by Annabel Subtitled ‘Wonderings and Reflections on Growing Up Gracefully’, All I Know Now is part memoir, part advice guide for teens, by one of the big stars of vlogging. Carrie…
White Hunger by Aki Ollikainen
Translated from Finnish by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah Reviewed by Kate Gardner I’ll warn you from the start: this is not the book to read if you’re feeling a…
Shiny New Author: Sarah Bannan on Weightless
Interview by Victoria V: There’s been a spate of social media bullying cases in the news these past few years; was there any one particular event that sparked the idea…
Weightless by Sarah Bannan
Reviewed by Victoria Some of the most powerful stories about children and adolescents are the ones, like Lord of the Flies, that send chills down your spine. Make the children high…
Great Shakespearean Actors: Burbage to Branagh by Stanley Wells
Reviewed by Harriet Stanley Wells has been described as ‘our greatest authority on Shakespeare’s life and work’. He’s Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies…
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks
Reviewed by Simon It has been thirty years since Oliver Sacks’ most famous book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, was published and, while it does not need…
The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader
Review by Eleanor Franzén Imagine: you’re a woman in England in 1255. With a little bit of flexibility, depending on your father’s annual income, you have two life choices. One is…