The Little Library Christmas by Kate Young
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I’m a proper fan of Kate Young and her Little Library books – they’re a delightful mix of recipes, reflection, and book recommendations, but even so…
The Oxford Book of Theatrical Anecdotes, edited by Gyles Brandreth
Reviewed by Harriet This, obviously, is a book for those who like a good theatrical anecdote. I certainly do, and have been privy to many of them since I was…
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Universe: And Our place within it by Andrew Newsam
Reviewed by Annabel I’ve always loved books about space and I still have my beloved Hamlyn guides on Astronomy and Exploring the Planets by Iain Nicholson from 1970 that got…
Kitted Out: Style and Youth Culture in the Second World War by Caroline Young
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This extremely well-researched and authoritative book takes us through the Second World War, in the UK, the US, the Far and Middle East and Europe, through…
Spoon-Fed by Tim Spector
Reviewed by Annabel Kings College Hospital-based Professor Tim Spector’s name is, I hope, becoming more widely known in the UK since the pandemic began. He’s been involved in the development…
Knitting From Fair Isle by Mati Ventrillon
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton There are a few new knitting books, annuals, or journals in the offing that deal with Fair Isle or Shetland lace, but this is the first…
Unofficial Britain: Journeys Through Unexpected Places by Gareth E. Rees
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Opening notably and powerfully with a description of travelling through a traditional countryside location, innocent dry stone walls at first, then Civil War memories, a burning…
Treasure Islands by Alec Crawford
Review by Hayley Anderton The cover of this book is attractive, and the tag line ‘True Tales of a Shipwreck Hunter’ might always have made me pick it up to…
Journey through a Tragicomic Century: The Absurd Life of Hasso Grabner by Francis Nenik
Translated by Katy Derbyshire Reviewed by Eleanor Updegraff This September sees the launch of V&Q Books, a brand-new publishing imprint with the mission of translating ‘remarkable writing from Germany’ for…
Horse Crazy: The Story of a Woman and a World in Love with an Animal by Sarah Maslin Nir
Review by Liz Dexter Sarah Maslin Nir is a staff reporter for the New York Times who, by her own admission, has sought out horses wherever she’s travelled to write…
Riders on the Storm: The climate crisis and the survival of being by Alastair McIntosh
Review by Peter Reason Alastair McIntosh is a Scottish Quaker, peace, community and environmental writer and campaigner, maybe best described as a spiritual activist. He is a fellow and former…
The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes
Reviewed by Liz Dexter A book that is in turns entertaining, lyrical and shocking, you won’t think about the countryside – or the rivers – of England in quite the…
King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes
Translated by Frank Wynne Reviewed by Annabel I write from the realms of the ugly, for the ugly, the old, the bull dykes, the frigid, the unfucked, the unfuckable, the…
Entangled Life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures by Merlin Sheldrake
Review by Peter Reason Entangled Lives by Merlin Sheldrake has been greeted with much enthusiasm, not least by Robert Macfarlane in the New Yorker. I am sure I am not…
The Changing Mind by Daniel Levitin
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is a wonderful book, and the real title is the sub-title: A Neuroscientist’s Guide to Ageing Well. It is not in any sense a self…
Antlers of Water: Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland, edited by Kathleen Jamie
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Ever since I read Findings sometime around a decade ago I’ve viewed anything with Kathleen Jamie’s name attached to it with interest and it’s probably fair…
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Book, ed. James Raven
Reviewed by Liz Dexter As you would expect from an Oxford Illustrated History of … this is a sumptuous production, world-wide in scope and bringing in chapters from experts from…
Summer Kitchens by Olia Hercules
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton At the risk of speaking too soon, lockdown finally seems to be lifting in Leicester just in time to catch the dregs of summer (our John…
Cover by Peter Mendelsund
Reviewed by Harriet Ed’s Note: Six years after its publication in hardback, Mendelsund’s Cover gets a paperback release, so we are reposting Harriet’s original review. Every choice of color, every…
Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Natasha Trethewey is an English professor and former U.S. Poet Laureate familiar to me from Native Guard (2006), her third of five poetry collections – an…
Grayson Perry by Jacky Klein & Grayson Perry
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This sumptuous book, that has a lot of content, in terms of both text and image, is a real treat – the only book so far…
Three Wainwright Prize Nominees: Books by Patrick Barkham, Patrick Laurie & Jini Reddy
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster The Wainwright Prize longlists for writing on UK nature and global conservation themes were announced in early June and will be whittled down to shortlists on…
Notes From An Apocalypse by Mark O’Connell
Review by Annabel O’Connell is an Irish journalist who won the Wellcome Book Prize for his previous title, To Be a Machine (which I reviewed for Shiny here). His exploration…
Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics by Tom Keymer
Reviewed by Harriet Today, Jane Austen is regarded as one of the most important writers in the English language, often spoken of in the same sentence as Shakespeare. It wasn’t…