April 8, 2021 A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel Reviewed by Max Dunbar The Age of Acceleration In 2019, the Unherd website carried an article by Gerard DeGroot, about the Chang’e 4 moon landing….
April 6, 2021 Where Stands a Wingèd Sentry by Margaret Kennedy Reviewed by Harriet If you’ve heard of, or read, Margaret Kennedy at all, it’s likely to be her 1924 novel The Constant Nymph. Written…
April 6, 2021 Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce Reviewed by Heavenali Miss Benson’s Beetle is Rachel Joyce’s latest novel – now published in paperback. Women are at the heart of this wonderful…
March 30, 2021 The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz Translated by Philip Boehm Reviewed by Gill Davies This is an important republication of a novel which first appeared eighty years ago under a…
March 30, 2021 The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji Translated by Ho-Ling Wong Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is a very unusual book, and I initially disliked its artificiality – extreme, even by…
March 25, 2021 The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers Reviewed by Annabel With The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, Becky Chambers brings her Wayfarers series to a close. The quartet began in 2015…
March 23, 2021 Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth After a year of daily Covid death reports, death really wasn’t something I wanted to hear any more of, let…
March 18, 2021 Bestiary by K-Ming Chang Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth “At a loss for words”, “in awe” and “confused but thrilled” are all phrases that I could use to describe…
March 16, 2021 Cathedral by Ben Hopkins Reviewed by Terence Jagger The cathedral, and the difficulties building it, both physical, financial, and aesthetic, dominate the early parts of the book, and…
March 11, 2021 Tang: A Shetland Story by J.J. Haldane Burgess Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Northus is a new project from Michael Walmer (who’s own reprint series will be familiar to many readers here) and…
March 11, 2021 The Disciple by Michael Mallon Reviewed by Annabel A novel about the increasingly toxic relationship between an old art historian and his young acolyte set in Florence was always…
March 9, 2021 Havana Year Zero by Karla Suárez Translated by Christina MacSweeney Reviewed by Pete Freeth Havana Year Zero is a delightfully unusual detective story from Karla Suárez and translated into English…
March 5, 2021 Hotel Cartagena by Simone Buchholz Translated by Rachel Ward Reviewed by Annabel I’ve come late to German ‘Queen of Krimi’ Simone Buchholz’s novels. Hotel Cartagena is the ninth of…
March 2, 2021 The Ice by John Kåre Raake Translated by Adam King Reviewed by Gill Davies John Kåre Rake is a successful Norwegian screen writer and this is his first novel. It’s…
February 25, 2021 Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns Reviewed by Harriet Barbara Comyns seems to be enjoying a well-deserved renaissance at the moment. In addition to this one, just published by Daunt…
February 23, 2021 A Long Way From Douala by Max Lobe Translated by Ros Schwartz Reviewed by Annabel I have a personal goal to increase diversity in my reading and am glad to have discovered…
February 18, 2021 House With No Doors by Jeff Noon Reviewed by Annabel Having been a fan of Jeff Noon’s cult spec fiction novels set in an alternate Manchester, I was surprised and delighted…
February 18, 2021 How We Are Translated by Jessica Gaitán Johannesson Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth When an author is described as having a ”fresh voice”, I usually dismiss the description with a shrug; the attribute…
February 16, 2021 The Foolish Gentlewoman by Margery Sharp Reviewed by Harriet At fifty-five, Isobel Brocken was still a nice-looking woman. She dated, of course, all her female friends said so – poor…
February 16, 2021 Writers & Lovers by Lily King Paperback review by Rebecca Foster I almost passed on the chance to read this because I’d gotten the impression that it was nothing more…
February 11, 2021 The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Robert Jones, Jr. had doubts about writing The Prophets: “Not only was the subject matter too uncharted but the psychic…
February 11, 2021 Astral Travel by Elizabeth Baines Reviewed by Annabel …a lot of what I remember is not the same as what the others remember, which was partly what caused the…
February 9, 2021 Mr Cadmus by Peter Ackroyd Reviewed by Annabel Owning most of Ackroyd’s fiction output and a good chunk of his non-fiction (even if I haven’t quite read it all),…
February 4, 2021 We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan Review by Pete Freeth As the British publishing industry continues to strive for greater diversity and cultural representation, initiatives like the #Merky Books New…
February 4, 2021 The Death of Francis Bacon by Max Porter Reviewed by Annabel Max Porter emerged on the British literary scene in the mid-2010s as an author to be watched. His debut 2015 novella…
