July 1, 2021 Gelupo Gelato by Jacob Kenedy Review by Hayley Anderton When Gelupo Gelato arrived, it was so hot I couldn’t muster the energy to make the big supermarket trip to…
June 29, 2021 A Stinging Delight by David Storey Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2004 I had the great pleasure of meeting David Storey – rugby player, painter, novelist, poet, playwright and filmmaker…
June 24, 2021 Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness, by Mark Solms Review by Terence Jagger This is a fascinating book, one I bought after hearing the author give an inspiring presentation to the Royal Institution….
June 24, 2021 Burning Man: The Ascent of D.H. Lawrence by Frances Wilson Reviewed by Harriet I always feel as if I stood naked for the fire of Almighty God to go through me….I often think of…
June 8, 2021 On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason Translated by Lytton Smith Review by Peter Reason This book focuses on two things that are changing beyond recognition in this era of rapid…
June 7, 2021 Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack by Richard Ovenden Review by Liz Dexter The processes of selection, acquisition and cataloguing, as well as of disposal and retention, are never neutral acts. They are…
June 7, 2021 Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life by Alex Christofi Review by Karen Langley It could be argued that much fiction is in a sense autobiographical, and one man who certainly poured his life…
June 4, 2021 Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me by John Sutherland Review by Karen Langley Monica Jones, the subject of a new biography by John Sutherland, is a fascinating figure who, up until now, has…
June 4, 2021 Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Why country X? Why language Y? Anyone who has lived abroad or taken up a foreign language will be familiar…
June 3, 2021 Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An Unreliable Memoir, by Marina Warner Review by Helen Parry In spring 1944 the English officer Esmond Warner attended a party in Bari hosted by a widow, Signora Terzulli, and…
June 1, 2021 The Muse by Nell Dunn Review by Annabel There is a particular sub-genre of memoir that almost goes into biography but fundamentally remains a memoir. I’m talking about memoirs…
June 1, 2021 The Nightingale: Notes on a songbird, by Sam Lee Review by Peter Reason Sam Lee is a renowned song collector, interpreter, and singer of folk songs from Britain and Ireland; he has an…
May 28, 2021 Double Lives by Helen McCarthy Reviewed by Harriet In this impressively detailed book, shortlisted for this year’s Wolfson History Prize, Helen McCarthy surveys the lives of women who worked…
May 27, 2021 Reviewer’s Choice: Twentieth Century Paris (1900-1950) – A Literary Guide for Travellers by Marie-José Gransard While Shiny New Books concentrates on the new, occasionally, we give our reviewers room to share previously published – ie: ‘not Shiny New Books’…
May 25, 2021 Field Work: What Land Does to People and What People Do to Land by Bella Bathurst Review by Liz Dexter “This place, this land, wasn’t a job or a business: it was everything – past and future, identity and rhythm,…
May 21, 2021 Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert Review by Peter Reason Elizabeth Kolbert is a celebrated American journalist, staff writer for the New Yorker. Her work focuses unflinchingly on the ecological…
May 20, 2021 Valentine Ackland: A Transgressive Life by Frances Bingham Reviewed by Gill Davies This is a remarkable book about a remarkable woman. Valentine Ackland (1906-1969) was “transgressive” in so many ways. She was…
May 13, 2021 The Hard Crowd, Essays 2000-2020, by Rachel Kushner Reviewed by Max Dunbar The Gallery of Souls I’ve Known Many years ago, novelist Rachel Kushner worked in a bar called the Blue Lamp…
May 13, 2021 The Fighter Fell in Love: A Spanish Civil War Memoir by James R. Jump Reviewed by Michael Eaude This is the memoir of a volunteer to the International Brigades, formed to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War…
May 11, 2021 Digging up Britain: A New History in Ten Extraordinary Discoveries by Mike Pitts Reviewed by Liz Dexter “Who are we? Where do we come from? What is Britain, and what does it mean to be British?” This…
May 6, 2021 In the Garden; Essays on Nature and Growing Review by Hayley Anderton This is the first of the Daunt Books essay collections that I’ve read and I’m mostly impressed. The quality of…
May 4, 2021 The Craft of Poetry by Lucy Newlyn Reviewed by Rob Spence Lucy Newlyn is a intriguing literary figure. She had a career as an Oxford don, publishing well-regarded studies of Romantic…
April 29, 2021 Empireland: How Imperialism has Shaped Modern Britain by Sathnam Sanghera Reviewed by Liz Dexter “If we don’t confront the reality of what happened in British empire, we will never be able to work out…
April 27, 2021 Whitman in Washington by Kenneth Price Reviewed by Rob Spence Kenneth Price is the co-director of the Walt Whitman Archive, and one of the leading experts on the poet, having…
April 20, 2021 Commemorative Modernisms by Alice Kelly Review by Rob Spence Modernism has always resisted precise definition, and in recent years it has been normal in literary-critical circles to use the…
