Parfums by Philippe Claudel
Translated by Euan Cameron Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell Those unfamiliar with Claudel may have heard of him in association with the BAFTA-winning French film I’ve Loved You So Long, which starred…
A Message From Martha by Mark Avery
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is an important centenary year; on 1 September, 1914, the world’s last Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) died in Cincinnati Zoo. Her name was Martha, and…
The Hermit in the Garden: From Imperial Rome to Ornamental Gnome by Gordon Campbell
Reviewed by Barb Scharf If you were a member of the English aristocracy residing in Shropshire in the Georgian era, late 1700s to early 1800s, you might well have received…
Herbaceous by Paul Evans
Reviewed by Barb Scharf HERBACEOUS adj resembling or having the nature of herbs (any non-woody seed-bearing plant which dies down to the ground after flowering but whose roots etc. survive);…
A Strange Business: Making Art and Money in Nineteenth-Century Britain by James Hamilton
Reviewed by Frances Ambler Mention art and money together and the chances are it’ll conjure up an image of some Saatchi-esque super dealer or the likes of Damien Hirst, artists…
The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson, ed. Tom Jaine
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton My best friend and I met through books; she was running a discount bookshop that I used to shop in, after a while she gave me…
Colliding Worlds by Arthur I Miller
Reviewed by Peter Hobson One of the most enjoyable work-related things I have done in recent years was to collaborate with the British artist Jayne Wilton for a year after…
Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time by Penelope Lively
Paperback review by Denise Kong Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time is an intelligent, illuminating and thoughtful memoir, which left me wanting its author, Penelope Lively, to be my…
As Green as Grass by Emma Smith
Paperback review by Simon Thomas Emma Smith, who wrote novels, short stories, and children’s books throughout the second half of the 20th century, has had a resurgence of fame in her…
Travels with Epicurus by Daniel Klein
Reviewed by Victoria Best Cultural theorist Giorgio Agamben has some very interesting things to say on the topic of old age – the subject of Daniel Klein’s gentle, ruminative trundle…
The Skeleton Cupboard by Tanya Byron
Reviewed by Victoria Best When my son was still a child, he used to be transfixed by The House of Tiny Tearaways, a BBC programme in which families experiencing some nightmare…
The New Sylva, A Discourse of Forest and Orchard Trees for the Twenty-First Century, by Gabriel Hemery and Sarah Simblet
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton When Shiny New Books asked me if I’d like to review The New Sylva I thought it sounded interesting. When it arrived I thought it looked interesting and…
To War With Whitaker by Hermione Ranfurly
Reviewed by Claire If I were knowingly heading into an active theatre of war, I like to think I would go armed with the necessary information, wardrobe, and exit plan…
The Most Dangerous Book; The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses by Kevin Birmingham
Reviewed by Max Dunbar This study of how James Joyce’s Ulysses came to be published and set in type is almost as essential as the book itself. The odds were against it,…
The Disinherited by Robert Sackville-West
Reviewed by Victoria Best When Jerry Seinfeld remarked that ‘There is no such thing as fun for all the family’, he could have had the Sackville-Wests in mind. In the…
The Accidental Universe by Alan Lightman
Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell My first encounter with Alan Lightman was through his 1992 novel Einstein’s Dreams, a fictional account of the scientist during the period he was working on the…
The Legs of Izolda Morgan by Bruno Jasieński
Translated by Soren A. Gauger and Guy Torr Reviewed by Karen Langley The boundaries and allegiances in Europe moved and blurred continually during the early 20th century, and many writers…
Shakespeare & Me, edited by Susannah Carson
Reviewed by Simon Thomas A few years ago, I very much enjoyed A Truth Universally Acknowledged, an anthology of writers and readers celebrating Jane Austen, which was also edited by Susannah…
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is a famous and fascinating book, and I think anyone interested in the Great War, or the wider question of how wars begin, would find…
Over the Ocean by Erica Fischer
Translated by Andrew Brown Reviewed by Jean Morris The media were full of the D-Day commemorations as I read this book – stories of wartime fear and bravery that I’d…
The Path Through The Trees by Christopher Milne
Reviewed by Claire When you are the inspiration for one of the most famous and best-loved children’s books of all time, how do you grow up? How do you set…
One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson
Reviewed by Harriet Devine If I were to make a list of things I probably wouldn’t want to read a book about, aeroplanes, cars, baseball and finance would be somewhere near…
Pleasures and Landscapes by Sybille Bedford
Reviewed by Simon Thomas Are you ready to be transported back to postwar Europe? Although this collection of essays was first published as Pleasures and Landscapes as recently as 2003, they are…
My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff
Reviewed by Victoria Best When this memoir begins, Joanna Rakoff is 23 and has just dropped out of her graduate literary program in London and returned to New York, declaring…