Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2020 I reviewed Katie Hickman’s previous book, She-Merchants, Buccaneers and Gentlewomen, a fascinating account of the earliest British women to visit India. Their stories were…
Review by Liz Dexter We need to read about the achievements of women, not least because we are constantly reminded of the achievements of men, who are more confident in…
Review by Liz Dexter “I have chased the Snow Widows through dusty attics and auction rooms, and sifted them from history’s cutting room floors.” Two mothers; three wives; a scattering…
Review by Karen Langley In our turbulent modern world, the concept of exile is never far away from the headlines. Wars and religious conflicts constantly cause human beings to be…
Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies Here is a hefty and impressive package, a bumper fun book and prodigious resource guide for all serious crime fiction fans (and who isn’t these days,…
Review by Terence Jagger We are all aware of placebos and their effects – the idea that a totally inactive substance can have a similar effect to, for example, a…
Review by Liz Dexter What role does music really, deeply play in our lives, from our first days to our last? Jude Rogers in her clever, educational and moving book…
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long I recently reviewed a biography of the Queen by Robert Hardman (reviewed here) which I described as an “admirable book” in its lack of hyperbole and…
Review by Annabel Shirley Collins is widely regarded as one of the most influential British folk singers of our times. Often singing alongside her sister and composer Dolly, she was…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster May is Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month and so the perfect time to consider two memoirs of postnatal depression, one that was just published this month…
Review by David Hebblethwaite In 2011, journalist Chitra Ramaswamy was sent to interview Henry and Ingrid Wuga, a Jewish couple who had fled Nazi Germany and, by then in their…
Translated by Ann Goldstein Review by Anna Hollingsworth There’s something fascinating about writers writing about, well, writing and reading. I care more about writers’ preferred pens and books on their…
Review by Liz Dexter This is a collection of writing by women about music, mainly about women in music, put together by visual artist, musician and writer Kim Gordon and…
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long There have been so many books written about ‘Her Maj’ and, I daresay, there will be more in the future, and striking the right note is…
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies Back when I aspired to write crime fiction but realised I was a lousy plotter, I used to buy used true-crime magazines on Preston market to…
Reviewed by Harriet Anyone who knows me or reads my reviews will know that I’m a great admirer of Sebastian Barry. I’ve reviewed three of his novels on Shiny (here,…
Review by Annabel The TV news came on and a lugubrious looking chap in a light-coloured suit with a deep, plummy voice said something about the balance of payments. ‘That’s…
Reviewed by Annabel Dr Andrew Lees is a neurology professor at the National Hospital in London the first English hospital dedicated exclusively to treating the diseases of the nervous system….
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long The second volume of these diaries was delivered by my postman, who was visibly having difficulty handing it over as he had a huge pile of…
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and the Romance of the Century’ is the subtitle of this joint biography by Stephen Galloway. The author, previously executive editor of the…
Review by Liz Dexter In this extraordinary book, Richard King takes the voices of a hundred Welsh people who were active in various forms of culture and politics over the…
Review by Terence Jagger This is a lively and compelling biography of one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century, who has somehow escaped the notice of the general…
Review by Karen Langley We readers have never been able to get enough of crime fiction, it seems, and in the 21st century the genre is as popular as it…
Review by Annabel Gaskell Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, her novel conceived during that momentous trip to Geneva in 1816 during ‘the year without a summer’, is supremely concerned with the subject…
