Admissions by Henry Marsh
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Brain surgeon Henry Marsh’s first book, Do No Harm, was one of my favorite reads of 2015 [reviewed by Annabel here]. In short, enthrallingly detailed chapters named after conditions…
The Bestseller Code by Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jocker
Reviewed by Annabel Imagine that you train a computer to read and analyse books, input a mix of hundreds and ask it to predict which books are most likely to…
The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books by Martin Edwards
Reviewed by Harriet Here at Shiny we love our classic crime, and we have been delighted to review a number of excellent novels that have recently made available through the…
Long Road from Jarrow: A Journey Through Britain Then and Now by Stuart Maconie
Review by Liz Dexter This entertaining and thought-provoking book is both a state-of-the-nation essay and an exercise in historical research and re-enactment and Maconie, being a seasoned writer and man…
A Secret Sisterhood by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney
Reviewed by Harriet The subtitle of this book is ‘The hidden friendships of Austen, Brontë, Eliot and Woolf’, which sounds very promising. I’ll start by saying that I found some…
These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath by Gail Crowther and Peter K. Steinberg
Review by Karen Langley You could be forgiven for thinking that the last thing the world needs is yet another book about the poet, writer and artist Sylvia Plath. She’s…
Excessively Diverted: Austen Books into Movies
By Diana Cheng To wrap up a week of Jane Austen celebration, here’s an annotated list of adaptations of her works on both the small and big screens, productions that…
Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley
Reviewed by Harriet If you’re a watcher of historical TV documentaries, you won’t need introducing to Lucy Worsley, who presents history programmes for the BBC, in which she often dresses…
ReWild: The Art of Returning to Nature by Nick Baker
Review by Liz Dexter Nick Baker is a well-known naturalist, writer and broadcaster, whose work here, described by the publisher as “a memoir of sorts” but really very different from…
Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s by Anne Sebba
Reviewed by Helen Parry Among the many people Anne Sebba interviewed for this book was the playwright Jean-Claude Grumberg. During the German occupation of France, Grumberg’s Jewish mother paid a…
Popular: Why Being Liked is the Secret to Greater Success and Happiness by Mitch Prinstein
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Mitch Prinstein is an expert on popularity, but he uses lots of other people’s experiments as well as his own to back up his claims in…
No Cunning Plan: My Story by Tony Robinson
Review by Laura Marriott Like many people I first came to know Tony Robinson through his role as Baldrick on Blackadder, before following him as he helmed Time Team. This…
The Santiago Pilgrimage by Jean-Christophe Rufin
Translated by Martina Devis & Malcolm Imrie Reviewed by Terence Jagger Monsieur Rufin is an impressive man, having founded Médecins sans Frontières, been an ambassador for France in Senegal, written…
Deaths of the Poets by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts
Review by Harriet The deaths of poets matter to us because they become a lens through which to look at the poems. So say the authors, both poets themselves, in…
Aphra Behn: A Secret Life by Janet Todd
Review by Harriet ‘Aphra Behn was a woman who wore masks’. So says Janet Todd at the beginning of this monumental, newly revised biography of Behn, who was a prolific…
The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington by Joanna Moorhead
Reviewed by Karen Langley This year is the centenary of the birth of author and artist Leonora Carrington, and we’re being treated to a wonderful array of issues and reissues…
Hamlet: Globe to Globe by Dominic Dromgoole
Reviewed by Harriet Dominic Dromgoole was the Artistic Director of London’s Globe Theatre from 2005 to 2016. During this successful period he initiated many memorable achievements, including a 2012 festival…
David Jones: Engraver, Soldier, Painter, Poet by Thomas Dilworth
Review by Rob Spence Ask a reasonably well-educated person to name some Anglophone modernist poets, and you are sure to hear the names of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Mention…
Foxes Unearthed: A story of love and loathing in modern Britain by Lucy Jones
Review by Hayley Anderton Where I live – middle of a city, no garden, bins inside, and nobody feeding them, foxes are a delight to see. They seem generally indifferent…
Rain: Four Walks in English Weather by Melissa Harrison
Reviewed by Rob Spence I come from Manchester, so I know about rain. Actually, Manchester’s reputation as the rainy city is, as I am overfond of pointing out, a result…
A House in Flanders, by Michael Jenkins
Reviewed by Helen Parry In the extreme northern part of France lies the plain of Flanders, a great fertile expanse rolling inland from the sea until it meets a chain…
Gone: A Girl, a Violin, and a Life Unstrung by Min Kym
Reviewed by Harriet For some reason I’ve always been fascinated by child prodigies – people who seem to have been born with an innate talent for something, which very often…
Walking in Berlin by Franz Hessel
Translated by Amanda DeMarco Reviewed by Rob Spence Berlin is one of my favourite cities, and I have spent a lot of time walking around its fascinating streets. So the…
Hit Makers by Derek Thompson
Review by Annabel I came to read this book immediately after devouring UK journalist and presenter Tim Harford’s recent Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World,…