Review by Liz Dexter “Having been lost in the Great Fire and again to the Blitz, Christ Church has now arguably been lost again, figuratively, to London’s neoliberal appetites.”(p. 35)…
Review by Liz Dexter While I come at this topic through the lens of my own experience, I share this journey because I believe anyone can learn and benefit from…
Review by Rob Spence Belles-Lettres is a term you rarely hear nowadays, but once upon a time, it was quite common, as a description for those literary items that defied…
Review by Annabel I’m becoming addicted to the Melville House ‘Futures’ series – see my reviews of Fraud, Gardens, Energy and Trust. The series comprises short non-fiction, extended essays to…
Review by Annabel Being a 1960-born baby, I was a t(w)eenager all through the 1970s, from start to finish. The decade encompassed my whole time at senior school and my…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter The countryside belongs to everyone. (Michael Morpurgo, Foreword) This interesting volume by the renowned and doughty nature and countryside publisher Little Toller Books brings together essays,…
A short review by Annabel We don’t often review children’s books at Shiny, but when Lonely Planet sent me the latest in their ‘Kid’s Guide’ series after we’d reviewed some…
Review by Liz Dexter Then there was Dungeness itself. True to its contrary nature, slack water came around the headland a couple of hours either side of the peak or…
Compiled by Annabel We haven’t done one of our archive reading lists for a couple of years, but what better occasion to celebrate belatedly than Sir David Attenborough reaching his…
Translated by Kate McNaughton Review by Karen Langley Nobel-prize winner Herta Muller is a Romanian-German novelist, poet and essayist who’s known for work which captures the experience of living under…
Review by Annabel I’ve reviewed three of Melville House’s ‘Futures’ series previously for Shiny, (Gardens, Energy and Trust). They are punchy little flapped paperbacks of under 200 pages, each written…
Review by Peter Reason I am a great fan of Amitav Ghosh both for his fiction and his non-fiction. I was introduced to his writing when The Hungry Tide was…
Review by Liz Dexter Having had the great fortune to have travelled on many exciting railways to many exiting places elsewhere in the world, from the wide-open plains of America…
Review by Rob Spence The world of 2026 is a world in turmoil. The relentless 24-hour barrage of news brings daily accounts of war, massacres, invasions, extraordinary political manoeuvres, the…
Reviewed by Harriet Plenty of people will be thinking about Shakespeare at the moment, following the release of the wonderful film Hamnet. It’s taken from the novel of the same…
Review by Liz Dexter In the world of academia, no one knew my mother could barely write, her handwriting not much better than my paternal grandmother’s stroke-afflicted scrawls, and my…
Review by Annabel Last week it was ten years since David Bowie died in January 2016, and as the hours given to this anniversary in the media bore out, his…
I want to understand why people have subjected themselves to feats of endurance that are so challenging and often gruellingly painful. I want to explore how the values and practices…
Review by Karen Langley Russia is a county which has had innumerable books written about its history, whether from its earliest times, or more particularly from the period of its…
Reviewed by Harriet As an erstwhile recipient of review copies of the British Library Crime Classics series, I was aware that two novels were published in 1864 featuring female detectives:…
Lonely Planet, Epic Runs of the World Review by Liz Dexter Here we have an attractive and informative book which is an ideal gift for the runner in your life….
Reviewed by Harriet ‘A Rebellious, Subversive and Untamed Jane’ promises the subtitle of this new book by Austen scholar Looser. I wonder how many people still think of Austen as…
Review by Helen Parry Are you looking for a comprehensive introduction to British folklore by any chance? Then I have just the book for you. Folklore: A Journey through the…
Review by Peter Reason Sir Jonathon Espie Porritt, 2nd Baronet, CBE, Eton and Oxford; one might imagine him as a pillar of the British Establishment. Then you remember he was…
