My Life, Our Times by Gordon Brown
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…
Science Fiction: A Literary History edited by Roger Luckhurst
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…
Unaccompanied Minor by Alexander Newley
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…
In Search of Lost Books: The forgotten stories of eight mythical volumes by Giorgio van Straten
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…
Eastern Horizons: Hitchhiking the Silk Road by Levison Wood
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…
Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann
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…
Icebreaker: A Voyage Far North by Horatio Clare
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…
A Chelsea Concerto by Frances Faviell
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…
The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler
Review by Annabel While I can’t claim to read anywhere near the volume of old and newly reprinted novels that some of my Shiny colleagues do – perennially falling for…
Progress – Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future Johan Norberg
Reviewed by Terence Jagger As Carly Simon sang in 1971, ‘These are the good old days’. This is a fascinating book, and one you shouldn’t really read in one go…
Between the Wars 1919-1939 by Philip Ziegler
Review by Terence Jagger So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years –Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres T S Eliot, Four…
A History of Children’s Books in 100 Books by Roderick Cave and Sarah Ayad
Reviewed by Harriet Earlier this year I reviewed Martin Edwards’ Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, and very good it was too. So when I spotted this one, also…
An Odyssey: A Father, a Son and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Daniel Mendelsohn chairs the Humanities department at Bard College, where he was previously a Classics professor. He is the author of seven earlier books, ranging from…
The Seabird’s Cry: The Lives and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers by Adam Nicolson
Review by Peter Reason It is easy for those of us who live inland to read the ‘seabirds’ in the title as ‘seagulls’ and think of those creatures that poo…
Women and Power by Mary Beard
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Mary Beard is described as being ‘Britain’s best–known classicist on the inside front flap of this book. She’s also known for having experienced her unfair share…
Ma’am Darling by Craig Brown
Reviewed by Max Dunbar Nightshade Upon Magic The online OED defines starstruck as ‘Fascinated or greatly impressed by famous people, especially those connected with the cinema or the theatre.’ There…
The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
Review by Peter Reason When our postman handed me the package that contained my review copy of The Lost Words I blurted out, “I’ve been waiting for this!” In the…
A Round-Up of Christmas Cookbooks
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Christmas is coming and it’s time to start talking about it. The books vying for our money, and a top ten spot have been released –…
Heirloom Knitting by Sharon Miller
Review by Hayley Anderton Sharon Miller’s ‘Heirloom Knitting: A Shetland Lace Pattern Book’ had become almost a book of legend before this reprint made it readily available again (or still…
A Forger’s Tale by Shaun Greenhalgh
Reviewed by Harriet The subtitle of this fascinating book is ‘Confessions of the Bolton Forger’. Does that ring any bells? If you were keeping half an eye on the news…
This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
Review by Annabel I love reading medical memoirs, we’ve featured neurosurgeon Henry Marsh’s two volumes here at Shiny (see my review of Do No Harm here), and heart surgeon Stephen…
The Cocktail Book
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton My day job is selling wine, spirits, and beer, something I fell into when I became interested in learning more about wine. That was 18 years…
I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
Reviewed by Harriet I’ve always admired Maggie O’Farrell’s fiction, and greatly loved her most recent novel, This Must Be the Place, which I reviewed on Shiny last year. I didn’t…
The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
Reviewed by Simon Thomas Many book lovers have fantasies about what it would be like to work in a bookshop – perhaps particularly a secondhand bookshop. There is an aura…