Broken: Mending and Repair in a Throwaway World by Katie Treggiden
Review by Liz Dexter These are all menders and remakers working in collaboration with nature. They understand that as humans we are part of the natural world and that we…
Wish I Was Here: An Anti-Memoir by M. John Harrison
Review by Karen Langley M. John Harrison is a writer who’s been pushing the boundaries of fiction for decades; from his early sci fi works, through the fantasies (or are…
Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World: Essays, by Barry Lopez
Review by Peter Reason The late Barry Lopez is regarded by many as the doyen of travel and nature writers – although he and many others dislike these terms, preferring…
Sea Bean by Sally Huband
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton This is a book I’ve been anticipating for a couple of years. I think I first heard about it via Stephen Rutt, a nature writer I…
Street Food: Hawkers and the History of London by Charlie Taverner
Reviewed by Harriet Nowadays, when most people hear the term street food, they will be thinking about the emergence in the past ten or so years of a wonderful range…
T H White: A Biography, by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Reviewed by Helen Parry Not every writer lives a particularly interesting life (it is, after all, for their sitting down and imagining things that we value them) and not every…
Cary Grant’s Suit: Nine Movies that Made Me the Wreck I Am Today, by Todd McEwen
Review by Annabel North by Northwest isn’t about what happens to Cary Grant, it’s about what happens to his suit. The suit has the adventures, a gorgeous New York suit…
Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life, by Emily A. Austin
Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies In my first, diagnostic year at Sussex there was a required course in Philosophy. Turned out to be Brit logical positivism. Allegedly to help recent…
The Man With Miraculous Hands by Joseph Kessel
Translated by Helen Weaver and Leo Raditsa Reviewed by Rob Spence If you were asked to suggest which real-life character was to be played by Woody Harrelson in his next…
A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland & A Fortunate Man by John Berger
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster When I first heard about journalist Polly Morland’s A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story, which was later shortlisted for the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize, I…
After the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport
Reviewed by Rob Spence If you were tired of aimless flânerie in the Paris of the twenties, and fancied seeing Josephine Baker dancing at the Folies Bergère, you might be…
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Non Fiction
Lifestyle Revolution: How taste changed class in late 20th-century Britain by Ben Highmore
Review by Annabel Some years ago, our Shiny editor-at-large, Simon, reviewed a book by Ben Highmore called The Great Indoors. That book explored typical homes over the last century or so…
Suburbs: A Very Short Introduction by Carl Abbott
Review by Liz Dexter There are by now over 700 Very Short Introductions, on the Book of Common Prayer, the Brain, Modern Latin American Literature, Volcanoes, inter alia, and now…
Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell
Review by Terence Jagger We all know John Donne, poet and preacher, though many don’t realise that; indeed, some apparently don’t realise that they are the same man! But yes,…
Good for a Girl: My Life Running in a Man’s World, by Lauren Fleshman
Review by Liz Dexter Millions of women carry an abundance of positive memories of their time in sport, but they also carry the invisible wounds of their sports experiences. As…
Darkness Manifesto: How light pollution threatens the ancient rhythms of life, by Johan Eklöf
Translated by Elizabeth DeNoma Review by Peter Reason I leave my front door late one evening and walk along the driveway we share with our neighbours towards the narrow unlit…
The Accidental Detectorist by Nigel Richardson
Review by Julie Barham If you are interested in the process of finding objects from the past, this book, subtitled “Uncovering an Underground Obsession” will probably draw you in with…
This Sporting Life: Sport and Liberty in England, 1760 -1960, by Robert Colls
Review by Rob Spence Last November, in the midst of the Covid pandemic, strikes by essential workers, transport chaos, a cost-of-living crisis and the continuing devastation of the war in…
The North Will Rise Again by Alex Niven
Review by Karen Langley If you’re at all familiar with the mass of political rhetoric spouted in the media over recent years, you’ll have seen the phrase ‘levelling up’ appearing…
Fen, Bog and Swamp: A short history of peatland destruction and its role in the climate crisis, by Annie Proulx
Review by Peter Reason I used to keep my little yacht Coral, companion of many voyages and pilgrimages, on trot moorings on the Cattewater in Plymouth. On the further side…
Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement by James Vincent
Review by Liz Dexter James Vincent, a journalist for The Verge magazine, among other writing, got interested in metrology when he was sent to cover the changeover in Paris from…
Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time by Sheila Liming
Review by Annabel The New Year always brings with it a slew of self-help books about becoming the better/fitter/healthier/wealthier you. I look at these books and think – really? Why…
A Desperate Business: The Murder of Muriel McKay by Simon Farquhar
Reviewed by Harriet True crime is normally not a genre that attracts me in the least, so why am I reviewing this book? Well, because it tells a fascinating, moving,…
Hollywood: The Oral History by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson
Reviewed by Harriet Seven hundred and fifty pages sounds like a lot until you realise this book covers the entire history of Hollywood from its very beginnings to almost the…