A Chill in the Air by Iris Origo
Review by Terence Jagger This is a fascinating book, written during the year or so preceding Italy’s entry in to the 1939-45 war, when whether she would join – and…
Review by Terence Jagger This is a fascinating book, written during the year or so preceding Italy’s entry in to the 1939-45 war, when whether she would join – and…
Review by Karen Langley Readers of Shiny New Books will know of my love for Notting Hill Editions books; I’ve reviewed their “Beautiful and Impossible Things” and “The Russian Soul”…
Review by Annabel I loved this book from the front cover to the back, starting with its title – that capital ‘B’ is crucial to the book’s premise. Subtitled ‘Adventures…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton What She Ate looks at ‘six remarkable women and the food that tells their stories’. It comes at a time when food centred biographies, or food…
Reviewed by Jean Morris This is both useful and beautiful. Lucy Newlyn, recently retired Oxford professor of English literature, author of a lovely book, among others, about Dorothy and William…
Review by Terence Jagger Japan suffers multitudes of earthquakes every year and is among the best prepared countries in the world. Tsunami, too, are common, and both are planned for…
Review by Liz Dexter This is a huge book in many senses of the word. It’s physically impressive enough to have arrived in a slightly alarmingly large box (thank you…
Review by Liz Dexter This is a truly delightful book which is a MUST if you’re a 35-55 year old British person and a great read for everyone else, too….
Review by Max Dunbar Operation Shame Nowadays, when we think of the mafia, it’s with a sense of nostalgia. David Chase captured the feel in classic mob drama The Sopranos….
Reviewed by Gill Davies Lulah Ellender’s book – subtitled “A Family Story” – is part biography, part family history, and it includes reflections on her own family which gradually emerge from the…
Review by Peter Reason Miriam Darlington’s first book, Otter Country, recounted her search and study of otters in Britain. I reviewed this book with enthusiasm in Resurgence & Ecologist, noting…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster If you’ve read thirtysomething California funeral director Caitlin Doughty’s previous book, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, you’ll remember her account of training at a traditional San…
Review by Liz Dexter Jaron Lanier has been called the “Father of Virtual Reality” and he’s been involved with many of the main companies in this area of technology for…
Reviewed by Harriet This enthralling multiple biography is subtitled ‘Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, and the year that changed literature’. The year is 1922, and the claim…
Review by Karen Langley Although George Orwell’s name resonates most strongly with us nowadays because of his great novels – in particular “Nineteen Eighty Four”, which seems to become more…
Introduced by Rosamund Bartlett Translated by Kenneth Lantz / Olga Shartse Reviewed by Karen Langley Notting Hill Editions will probably need no introduction to readers of Shiny New Books. The…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter It’s the book everyone’s been waiting for that fills in the gaps left by Tony Blair’s autobiography and the various books on the financial crisis, the…
Reviewed by Annabel Once upon a time SF was a subculture haunted by small populations of nerds and geeks. Star Wars (1977) changed that, … SF author Adam Roberts says…
Review by Annabel The children of celebrity couples inevitably have a hard time growing up, especially when their parents split. You need only think of the late Carrie Fisher, daughter…
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is an engaging book about other books, but it makes no judgements on them, and nor can we express, even internally, our own views on…
Review by Liz Dexter It’s worth noting from the off that this is not a “new” travel book by the popular explorer, but a revisiting of a journey he made…
Reviewed by Harriet Most people probably think that the presence of black people in Britain began with the large influx of nearly 500 who came over from Jamaica in 1948…
Horatio Clare, who is quite an accomplished nature and travel writer, having a book on container ships and several on birds to his name, takes a journey to the far…
Reviewed by Kate Macdonald This is the first of the new reprint series from the Dean Street Press to be curated by the Furrowed Middlebrow blog, a truly admirable enterprise. They…