H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I was initially attracted to this book by it’s absolutely stunning cover (I have a soft spot for William Nicholson so enjoyed the homage) which in…
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The Making of Home by Judith Flanders
Reviewed by Harriet One of the most important distinctions made by Judith Flanders in this fascinating book is that between the concepts of house and home. While a house is…
The New World by Andrew Motion
Reviewed by Rowland Jones Our narrator, Jim Hawkins… Ah, Jim Hawkins as of Treasure Island you may ask? Well, yes and no. This is Jim Hawkins the son, who has also been…
The Forgotten Smile by Margaret Kennedy
Reviewed by Simon Thomas The Ladies of Lyndon, Margaret Kennedy’s first novel, was published in 1923, while the one which followed in 1924 – The Constant Nymph – was an enormous bestseller,…
This is the End by Stella Benson
Reviewed by Simon Thomas One of the more unusual novelists being reprinted at the moment is Stella Benson. Her work is issued by Michael Walmer, a one-man publishing house that…
Lucky Us by Amy Bloom
Reviewed by Victoria Best ‘My father’s wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.’ So begins this…
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What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund
Reviewed by Rebecca Hussey The immediate effect of reading Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read was to make me want to pick up a novel right away and start thinking…
The Long Way Home by Louise Penny
Reviewed by Ann In many respects, How the Light Gets In, Louise Penny’s previous novel about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, tied up a plethora of loose ends. Throughout the earlier books in…
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Reviewed by Simon If you’ve ever wondered what sort of prose Catherine Morland might have read before she ventured to Northanger Abbey, then look no further than Horace Walpole’s The Castle of…
The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
Reviewed by Jane Carter My mother, when she was a very small girl, was given a beautiful copy of The Happy Prince and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde. She loved that book,…
Orfeo by Richard Powers
Reviewed by Susan Osborne This is the first year that the Man Booker Prize has been opened up to include entries from the U.S.A. Out of a longlist of thirteen,…
Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda
Translated by Adriana Hunter Reviewed by Bookgazing. At the beginning of Under the Tripoli Sky, the book’s young narrator, Hadachinou, is subject to a bris; a ritual Jewish circumcision. The bris…
Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil Brinton
Reviewed by Harriet Devine There is one characteristic which may be safely said to belong to nearly all happily married couples – that of desiring to see equally happy marriages…
Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas
Reviewed by Kim Forrester Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas hit the big time with his best-selling novel The Slap in 2008. It won the ALS Gold Medal (2008), the Commonwealth Writers Prize Best…
Playing to the Gallery by Grayson Perry
Reviewed by Annabel Grayson Perry CBE RA, the Turner Prize-winning transvestite potter, is becoming a national treasure – so much so, that the BBC invited him to give their annual…
Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama
Reviewed by Edward Leigh This is the successor volume to The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, which together offer a complete history of how people…
Marrying Out by Harold Carlton
Reviewed by Simon Thomas I am an enormous fan of Slightly Foxed Editions, which are reprints of memoirs published in beautiful little hardbacks, complete with their own bookmark-ribbons. Obviously the…
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
Reviewed by Eric Karl Anderson Sometimes it seems like so such WWII fiction has been published that even stories set during the London Blitz all start to feel too familiar….
Goldeneye – Where Bond ws Born: Ian Fleming’s Jamaica by Matthew Parker
Reviewed by Victoria Best One of the reasons Ian Fleming wrote such good plots was because his time in Naval Intelligence during the Second World War meant that he lived…
The Smile Revolution by Colin Jones
Reviewed by Harriet I must admit I was initially drawn to this book by the lovely painting on the cover, a self-portrait by the great French artist Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Lebrun….
The Repercussions by Catherine Hall
Reviewed by Eric Karl Anderson Catherine Hall has a skilful power for building a story around people hampered by emotionally turbulent pasts in her novels. She did this with beautiful…
Five Fascinating Facts about… E.F. Benson
By Guy Fraser-Sampson. 1. His father was Archbishop of Canterbury. Through this connection Benson gained privileged access to high society, including royalty and the aristocracy. He remained friends with some members of…
Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey
Reviewed by Victoria Best I wonder if not being able to see ourselves is one of the great paradoxes of being alive – knowing oneself intimately and also not at…
Mapp and Lucia by E.F. Benson
Reviewed by Karen Langley In his time, E.F. Benson was a prolific writer of many different types of fiction, but nowadays he is best remember for his much-loved stories about…