Mãn by Kim Thuy
Translated by Sheila Frischman Reviewed by Susan Osborne This slim, very beautiful novel is a love story, a work of aching nostalgia and a glorious celebration of language. Its gorgeous,…
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Shiny New Books
Jen Campbell talks about Bookshops…
“I like bookshops,” a little girl once said to me in the middle of our own bookshop – an organised chaos of antiquarian children’s books in north London. “I like…
A Lady of Quality by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long Over the last ten years or so I have tracked down and read all of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s adult writing. I had been totally unaware that…
An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankel
Translated by Laurie Thompson Reviewed by Harriet Devine This book is a bit of a curiosity. When it arrived and I realised what it was, I wondered if it was…
Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe
Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell A few years ago there was a reality show series on children’s telly in the UK called Project Parent, in which kids from single parent families…
Herbaceous by Paul Evans
Reviewed by Barb Scharf HERBACEOUS adj resembling or having the nature of herbs (any non-woody seed-bearing plant which dies down to the ground after flowering but whose roots etc. survive);…
The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson
Written by Liam Roberts After an engrossing and thrilling first chapter, readers may expect a zipping crime novel full of action and intrigue, which The Spring of Kasper Meier does have in…
An Interview with Tom Barbash
Tell us about your apprenticeship in art – what experiences have made you the writer you are today? My first real job after college was as a reporter in a…
A Strange Business: Making Art and Money in Nineteenth-Century Britain by James Hamilton
Reviewed by Frances Ambler Mention art and money together and the chances are it’ll conjure up an image of some Saatchi-esque super dealer or the likes of Damien Hirst, artists…
The Head of the Saint by Socorro Acioli
Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn Reviewed by Annabel In my experience, there aren’t many novels for children and young adults around in English translation, although I was pleased…
How to be Both by Ali Smith
Reviewed by Harriet Devine I’m not one of those people who rush out and buy all the Booker longlisted books on principle, or even the shortlisted ones, or even the…
The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson, ed. Tom Jaine
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton My best friend and I met through books; she was running a discount bookshop that I used to shop in, after a while she gave me…
The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill
Reviewed by Harriet Let me say at once that I absolutely loved this book. I’ve read all the previous seven of Susan Hill’s Simon Serrailler series with pleasure, though I…
Upcoming Books into Films: Autumn 2014
By Diana Cheng The harvest of films releasing in the latter part of the year for me is the compensation for fallen leaves and chilly weather. Indeed, movies coming out…
Behind The Sea Garden by Deborah Lawrenson
The heroine of the Resistance may have been rising ninety, but she was still wearing racy red shoes. “Not so many years,” she said, “but a time that marked us…
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Reviewed by Simon It is difficult to write a review of a Marilynne Robinson novel that can even begin to do her writing justice. Reading one of her books makes…
The Sea Garden by Deborah Lawrenson
Reviewed by Adèle Geras The blurb on the back of this novel says it’s a sequel to Deborah Lawrenson’s well-received book, The Lantern. I haven’t read this, I’m afraid, so I…
Monique Roffey – A Profile
By Victoria Best Monique Roffey has been on a creative roll for the best part of a decade and has seen her work rise to prominence and gain critical acclaim;…
The English Girl by Margaret Leroy
Reviewed by Danielle. The beautiful and elegant city of Vienna serves as the backdrop to Margaret Leroy’s engaging historical novel The English Girl. While the city is known for its elegance…
Iza’s Ballad by Magda Szabó
Translated by George Szirtes Reviewed by Victoria Best I often shy away from books in translation, afraid they will sound clunky and odd. But this 1963 novel by renowned Hungarian…
Q&A with Mira Jacob
Questions by Victoria 1. Can you recall the first time you knew you wanted to be a writer? In second grade, we made our own blank-paged, cloth bound books. I…
The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob
Reviewed by Victoria Best How much are we responsible for the things that happen to the people we love? This is one of the underpinning themes of Mira Jacob’s sprawling,…
House of Ashes by Monique Roffey
Reviewed by Jean Morris Had I not so much enjoyed Monique Roffey’s previous novels, each one more than the last, I’m not sure I’d have wanted to read House of Ashes,…
In Love and War by Alex Preston
By Victoria Best It is 1937 and disgraced Cambridge student, Esmond Lowndes – caught in bed with another boy by the Master of Emmanuel College, no less – is being…