The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing
Reviewed by Marina Sofia There are some who crave solitude, others who fear it. There are those who crave some idealized version of solitude, à la Thoreau, absorbing the lessons…
Shop Girl by Mary Portas
Review by Annabel Mary Portas is one of those TV presenter/gurus you either love or find profoundly irritating. I love her and her championing of the high street and independent…
Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny by Holly Madison
Reviewed by Laura Marriott “I always thought it would be classy to not kiss and tell … but after a while you just get sick of having other people trying…
Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi
Translated by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, Anne Marie Jackson and Irina Steinberg Reviewed by Karen Langley The Russian Revolution and ensuing Civil War were amongst the most brutal conflicts of…
The Prose Factory by D.J. Taylor
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This ambitious book aims to provide a history of what it calls ‘literary life’ in the 20th century, encompassing an examination of writers, reviewers, the editors and…
The Story of Alice by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
Reviewed by Simon There are few children’s literary characters who are as well known as Alice et al. From Alice bands to Mad Hatters, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Cheshire Cat,…
Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs by Lisa Randall
Reviewed by Peter Hobson This new book by world famous theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, subtitled “The astounding interconnectedness of the Universe”, gives the reader an excellent insight into how physicists…
The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley by Diana Petre
Reviewed by Simon I am always unable to pass on the chance to read a Slightly Foxed Edition and, having re-loved 84, Charing Cross Road in the last issue of Shiny New…
The Outrun by Amy Liptrot
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster The Outrun has recently been shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize, awarded annually to a work that engages with medical themes. That’s because, put simply, it’s a…
Venice by Marie-José Gransard
Reviewed by Harriet I’ve been to Venice twice in my life, both times for regrettably short visits, but unforgettable ones. You can’t help being swept away by the beauty of…
Out in the Midday Sun by Margaret Shennan
Reviewed by Rob Spence The title of this book recalls Noel Coward’s jaunty song about the mad English, of course, and perhaps suggests that this will be a light-hearted romp…
Summer Before the Dark by Volker Weidermann
Translated by Carol Brown Janeway Reviewed by Karen Langley There are many things we have to thank Pushkin Press for (Gaito Gazdanov, Teffi, gorgeously produced books, to name just a…
The Bitter Taste of Victory by Lara Feigel
Reviewed by Rob Spence This book is a companion piece to Feigel’s The Love-Charm of Bombs (reviewed here), which examined the lives of some prominent writers in London during the Blitz and afterwards….
Unicorn: The Poetry of Angela Carter, with an Essay by Rosemary Hill
Reviewed by Harriet I was a slow starter where Angela Carter was concerned. I was given what I now think of as her masterpiece, Nights at the Circus, sometime in the…
The Prison Book Club by Ann Walmsley
Reviewed by Victoria The Prison Book Club was one of those books that I had high hopes for, being mildly fascinated by what goes on in your average book club, let…
The Making of the Modern Refugee by Peter Gatrell
Reviewed by Terence Jagger ‘Refugees have only been allowed a walk-on part in most histories of the twentieth century, and even then as subjects of external intervention rather than as…
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This book, which won the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, goes into the history of autism, research on autism and related syndromes over the years…
Josephine Tey: A Life by Jennifer Morag Henderson
Reviewed by Harriet I can’t tell you how excited I was when I heard there was finally going to be a proper biography of the great crime writer Josephine Tey,…
Gratitude by Oliver Sacks
Reviewed by Simon I’ve had the privilege of reviewing three different books by Oliver Sacks for Shiny New Books now, but this is the first since his sad death last year….
The Social Brain: How Diversity Made the Modern Mind by Richard Crisp
Reviewed by Anne Goodwin In the decades following the end of the Second World War, social psychology was preoccupied with an attempt to explain how ordinary people could commit such…
Charlotte Brontë: A Life, by Claire Harman
Reviewed by Barbara Howard Quoted in this book is Charlotte Brontë’s great aim and ambition in life ‘to be forever known’ as a poet, which she confided in a letter…
A Woman on the Edge of Time by Jeremy Gavron
Reviewed by Victoria In 1965, shortly before Christmas, a young, ambitious mother of two children on the brink of publishing her first book of sociology let herself into a friend’s…
Performing King Lear by Jonathan Croall
Reviewed by Harriet The role of King Lear is seen today as the ultimate challenge for the classical actor, the one that provides the supreme test of his abilities in…
The House of Elrig by Gavin Maxwell
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I discovered Gavin Maxwell’s books when newly exiled from a rural Scottish childhood. The first of his books that I found was Harpoon at a Venture. Drawn…