Review by Liz Dexter Cathy Newman is one of Channel 4 News’ main studio presenters and specialises in investigative journalism, too. Here she brings her feminism and writing talents to…
Edited by Robert Faggen & Alexandra Pleshoyano Review by Rob Spence For a while in the mid sixties to the early seventies, the singer-songwriter reigned supreme in popular music. Dylan,…
Review by Peter Reason Reading the title of this book and seeing the book cover, the prospective reader might, as did I, expect a book about the darker period of…
Reviewed by Gill Davies Here is a real treat for readers interested in the sometimes hidden side of Victorian society and its relationship with literary culture. The book relates the…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Thames and Hudson have got form for publishing tempting books that combine art and literature – Eric Karpeles Paintings in Proust: a visual companion to In…
Reviewed by Annabel Eric Idle is perhaps the most elusive of the Pythons. He’s the one who wrote on his own, the one whose characters are full of banter, ‘Nudge…
Reviewed by Harriet This attractive and informative volume does exactly what the title promises. It’s divided into ten sections: Science and Discovery; Travel and Tourism; Homes and Gardens; Sport and…
Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2015 I wrote a review for Shiny of Jonathan Croall’s Performing King Lear, a wonderfully well-researched survey of performances of this great and challenging play….
Review by Liz Dexter Williams opens this wonderful, absorbing book with a big statement about how the Vikings are not afforded the same respect as, say, the Romans, having become…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster It started with a misreading of some nineteenth-century handwriting. In 2013 Nell Stevens began a PhD at King’s College, London. Captivated by the energy and wit…
Reviewed by Annabel In his 2013 book Stuff Matters which I reviewed for Shiny here, materials science professor Miodownik took us on a tour around some of the most important…
Review by Anna Hollingsworth To say that the statistics are grim is a blatant understatement. One woman in five will experience sexual violence, but very few cases end up in…
Reviewed by Harriet Born in Cardiff in 1939, Peter Gill is a distinguished theatre director and playwright. But he started his career as an actor in the early 1960s, working…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster When I saw him introduce The Immeasurable World as part of the Faber Spring Party, William Atkins characterised it as being in “the old-fashioned travel writing…
Reviewed by Karen Langley The city of Paris exerts an eternal fascination; chic and glamorous, the haunt of revolutionaries and intellectuals, and stuffed with romance, it can be many things…
Review by Liz Dexter Henry II, father of Richard Lionheart and King John, husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine and murderer by instruction of Thomas Becket is, as Gold points out…
Reviewed by Annabel When punk happened, although I was the right age – in my later teens, but I’d already diverted off into prog rock, (I know!). So, I never…
Review by Peter Reason ‘The soul should always stand ajar.’ It is fitting that Michael Pollan introduces his latest book on the resurgence in interest in LSD, psilocybin and other…
Reviewed by Harriet If you’ve read Annabel’s account of the Golden Booker presentation, you’ll have noticed that one of the judges, Lemn Sissay, urged the audience to read this book….
Reviewed by Harriet David Lynch’s films are certainly not for everybody. Almost all of them are strange, dark, and increasingly hard to pin down to a plot summary, let alone…
Review by Liz Dexter Miranda Aldhouse-Green is a specialist in Romano-British studies and Iron Age archaeology and has written other books on myth and religion in this period, so you…
Review by Liz Dexter “I hate autobiographies. They’re so fake”. That’s an astounding opening sentence but one that doesn’t really surprise, given that it’s written by a man who’s spent…
Review by Julie Barham This is a book that in many ways reads like a novel. That said, it is also a non- fiction history book, well presented with at…
Reviewed by Max Dunbar Why Everything Old Is New Again If I had to recommend a historian on the twentieth century terrors to someone who was coming new to it,…
