On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks
Reviewed by Simon Oliver Sacks’ works are pretty much the only non-fiction books I read that aren’t about literature; for over thirty years he has been writing accessible books about…
Instrumental by James Rhodes
Reviewed by Annabel It’s hard to know where to start in writing about this memoir. I could be glib and say it’s about the healing power of classical music, which…
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Reviewed by Rebecca Hussey Maggie Nelson has had what one might call a cult following ever since the 2009 publication of her genre-bending essayistic prose-poem Bluets. While many readers, even…
Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells by Helen Scales
Reviewed by Annabel There are large numbers of popular science books written about particle physics, space and the periodic table, ditto for medicine and the mind. There are fewer books about…
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén Caitlin Doughty was a twenty-three-year-old with a degree in medieval history when she decided to become a mortician. The decision wasn’t spontaneous; she had been obsessed…
One Life: My Mother’s Story by Kate Grenville
Reviewed by Victoria Sorting through her mother’s things after her death in 2002, Kate Grenville came across an exercise book with her mother’s handwriting in it: ‘I have often thought…
The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards
Reviewed by Lyn Baines The Golden Age of crime fiction spanned the period between the World Wars. There are many stereotypes about the books written during this period, most of them…
Cyclogeography by Jon Day
Reviewed by Victoria The term ‘psychogeography’ may sound unwieldy but it’s actually rather an intriguing and lovely notion. It ties together the ideas that inform the concept of genius loci, or…
Bloomsbury’s Outsider: A Life of David Garnett by Sarah Knights
Reviewed by Simon Sarah Knights claims that she wrote her biography of David Garnett partly to restore his reputation – not as a writer, but as a person. His wife’s…
William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction by Stanley Wells
Reviewed by Harriet How much can be said about the life and work of Shakespeare in just 135 pages? A surprising amount, in fact. Clearly these OUP Very Short Introductions…
Victorian Fairy Tales, edited by Michael Newton
Reviewed by Helen Parry The sun was now set, and the darkness coming on, but the child thought of no danger but the bears behind her. If she had looked…
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell
Paperback review by Annabel A large part of the novel Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (which I reviewed here) was set twenty years after a global flu pandemic had wiped out…
Science in Wonderland: The Scientific Fairy Tales of Victorian Britain by Melanie Keene
Reviewed by Helen Parry Thomas Gradgrind is the famously awful teacher from Hard Times. His philosophy: ‘Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts…
The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller
Reviewed by Annabel What do you do when you seriously lose your reading mojo? I tend to retreat into a palate-cleansing thriller to get mine back, but I’ve never had…
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Reviewed by Max Dunbar There’s an episode of the classic US prison show Oz where a new governor brings back the death penalty and sentences Jefferson Keane, a gangster serving life, as the…
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
Reviewed by Victoria If I ever get to meet Matt Haig, the first thing I would like to do, now I’ve read his book, is give him a hug. I’m…
Reading the World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer by Ann Morgan
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Ann Morgan is a freelance writer for the Guardian, among other publications, and also part of a dedicated tribe of book bloggers. She spent 2011 on a…
Naked at the Albert Hall by Tracey Thorn
Reviewed by Annabel After the success of her memoir Bedsit Disco Queen (which I reviewed here) in which she told us how she joined a band and had a brilliant…
Leaving Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller
Reviewed by Victoria Writing a family memoir can be a tricky business in these days of ever more sensitively judgemental readers. There’s a subset who disapproves of anything that smacks…
Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris
Reviewed by Victoria In this outstanding work of cinema history, Mark Harris follows the fortunes of five big name Hollywood directors who enlisted in the wake of Pearl Harbour to…
The Reluctant Hostess by Ethelind Fearon
Reviewed by Simon I have a definite weakness for spoof etiquette guides and the like – such as Bed Manners, reviewed in the third issue of Shiny New Books – and…
Memoirs of a Professional Cad by George Sanders
Reviewed by Lyn Baines In an Afterword to this new edition of George Sanders’ memoir, his niece, Ulla Watson, describes him as the opposite to the cads and bounders he played…
All I Know Now by Carrie Hope Fletcher
Reviewed by Annabel Subtitled ‘Wonderings and Reflections on Growing Up Gracefully’, All I Know Now is part memoir, part advice guide for teens, by one of the big stars of vlogging. Carrie…
Great Shakespearean Actors: Burbage to Branagh by Stanley Wells
Reviewed by Harriet Stanley Wells has been described as ‘our greatest authority on Shakespeare’s life and work’. He’s Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies…