Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
Reviewed by Rebecca Hussey Jesmyn Ward’s memoir Men We Reaped is a difficult book, but a necessary and compelling one. As Ward says in the book’s prologue, “telling this story is the hardest…
Taking Command by David Richards
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This was an unusual read for me, as I know the author pretty well, having worked alongside him for a very busy and intensive year in…
Ezra Pound: Poet – The Epic Years by A. David Moody
Reviewed by Rob Spence I’ve been teaching Modernism in higher education for over two decades now, and have therefore spent quite a lot of time reading and discussing the work…
Duveen by S.N. Behrman
Reviewed by Simon A good book review – according to the unwritten rules agreed by the Shiny New Books editors – should be about the book, not simply an essay…
Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Story of Huguette Clark and the Loss of one of the World’s Greatest Fortunes by Bill Dedman & Paul Clark Newell Jr.
Reviewed by Frances Ambler Billionaires don’t just slip off the radar. Well, so you’d think. Huguette Clark, one of America’s wealthiest women, almost succeeded in doing exactly that. However, as Empty…
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…
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…
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…
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
Review by Annabel I always find accounts of lives worked in medicine absolutely fascinating, especially those of surgeons, who live on the cutting edge (sorry!) of medical science. It takes…
Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh by John Lahr
Reviewed by Max Dunbar Perfect Tenn: A Life of Tennessee Williams An inconvenience of biography is that before the interesting stuff is revealed, one first has to wade through chapter…
Parfums by Philippe Claudel
Translated by Euan Cameron Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell Those unfamiliar with Claudel may have heard of him in association with the BAFTA-winning French film I’ve Loved You So Long, which starred…
Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time by Penelope Lively
Paperback review by Denise Kong Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time is an intelligent, illuminating and thoughtful memoir, which left me wanting its author, Penelope Lively, to be my…
As Green as Grass by Emma Smith
Paperback review by Simon Thomas Emma Smith, who wrote novels, short stories, and children’s books throughout the second half of the 20th century, has had a resurgence of fame in her…
To War With Whitaker by Hermione Ranfurly
Reviewed by Claire If I were knowingly heading into an active theatre of war, I like to think I would go armed with the necessary information, wardrobe, and exit plan…
The Disinherited by Robert Sackville-West
Reviewed by Victoria Best When Jerry Seinfeld remarked that ‘There is no such thing as fun for all the family’, he could have had the Sackville-Wests in mind. In the…
Over the Ocean by Erica Fischer
Translated by Andrew Brown Reviewed by Jean Morris The media were full of the D-Day commemorations as I read this book – stories of wartime fear and bravery that I’d…
The Path Through The Trees by Christopher Milne
Reviewed by Claire When you are the inspiration for one of the most famous and best-loved children’s books of all time, how do you grow up? How do you set…
My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff
Reviewed by Victoria Best When this memoir begins, Joanna Rakoff is 23 and has just dropped out of her graduate literary program in London and returned to New York, declaring…
My Crazy Century: A Memoir by Ivan Klima
Reviewed by Max Dunbar Dictatorship of the Average This place’ll be a paradise tomorrow. And in every department there’ll be a supervisor with a sub-machine gun. – from ‘Mao Tse…
Music Night at the Apollo: A Memoir of Drifting by Lilian Pizzichini
Reviewed by Denise Kong In 2007 Lilian Pizzichini “had it all”. She’d worked at The Times Literary Supplement and The Literary Review, won the Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger for non-fiction with her first…
A.A. Milne: His Life by Ann Thwaite
Review by Simon Thomas What do you know about A. A. Milne? Your answer might be a little different if you’ve read our Five Fascinating Facts – or, indeed, if you’ve followed…
The Valley by Richard Benson
Reviewed by Victoria Best The best kind of non-fiction, I think, shows us how supposedly ‘average’ ordinary lives are really quite extraordinary. In the author’s foreward to his outstanding book…
An Encyclopaedia of Myself by Jonathan Meades
Reviewed by Eric Karl Anderson For several decades, Jonathan Meades has been a well-established writer, cultural critic of primarily food & architecture and broadcaster in Britain. He has such a…
Charlotte Mew and Her Friends by Penelope Fitzgerald
Reviewed by Simon Thomas I’m going to be honest, when I picked up a biography a little-known turn-of-the-century poet, I wasn’t expecting it to be a page turner. I’d never read…