October 22, 2020 One Billion Years to the End of the World by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Translated by Antonina W. Bouis Reviewed by Karen Langley Science fiction writing often gets a bad press; dismissed as lightweight genre writing, mocked for…
October 13, 2020 Reviewer’s Choice: A Day to Remember to Forget by Rosalind Brackenbury While Shiny New Books concentrates on the new, we enjoyed giving some of our reviewers room to share previously published – ie: ‘not Shiny…
September 10, 2020 Non-Combatants and Others by Rose Macaulay Reviewed by Karen Langley Rose Macaulay is mainly known for her 1956 novel The Towers of Trebizond; yet she was an astonishingly prolific writer,…
September 1, 2020 Potterism by Rose Macaulay Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Handheld Press are fast becoming my favourite independent press. Their book choices are consistently interesting, their editions well produced with particularly…
September 1, 2020 Dangerous Ages by Rose Macaulay Reviewed by Harriet Another very welcome addition to the new British Library Women Writers series, Dangerous Ages was published in 1921. It’s a fascinating…
July 14, 2020 The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany Review by Helen Parry I first read The King of Elfland’s Daughter five years ago, but this ‘fine, strange, almost forgotten novel’, as Neil…
June 25, 2020 This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald Reviewed by Harriet It’s been many years since I read anything by Scott Fitzgerald, but he used to be a favourite of mine. So…
June 25, 2020 Westwind by Ian Rankin Paperback review by Rob Spence It comes as a bit of a shock to realise that Ian Rankin has now published well over thirty…
June 23, 2020 The End of Me by Alfred Hayes Reviewed by Annabel Hayes, who was born in London but emigrated to the US as a child, first came to attention as a poet…
June 18, 2020 The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo Translated by Yumiko Yamazaki Review by Terence Jagger This Japanese detective thriller is set in the 1940s and so is relatively ‘modern’, but only…
June 16, 2020 James and Nora: A Portrait of a Marriage by Edna O’Brien Review by Rob Spence Last year, Weidenfeld and Nicholson reissued Edna O’Brien’s 1999 biography of Joyce, an entertainingly idiosyncratic volume, which is reviewed here….
June 11, 2020 Victory For The Slain by Hugh Lofting Review by Rob Spence When we think of First World War poets, it’s safe to say that Hugh Lofting will not be the first…
May 26, 2020 Chatterton Square by E H Young Reviewed by Harriet When the British Library announced the first three titles in their new Women Writers series, I was delighted see that one…
May 19, 2020 Diary Of A Foreigner In Paris, by Curzio Malaparte Translated by Stephen Twilley Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies An adjective frequently applied to Curzio Malaparte is ‘colourful’. To the Cambridge dictionary it means ‘vivid,…
April 21, 2020 My Husband Simon by Mollie Panter-Downes Reviewed by Harriet I’m sure I’m not alone in having rejoiced when the British Library announced a new series of reprints of 20th century…
April 7, 2020 A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen by Martin Gayford and David Hockney Reviewed by Liz Dexter This is a new ‘compact’ edition of this book, with a revised final chapter bringing it all up to date,…
March 17, 2020 James Joyce by Edna O’Brien Review by Rob Spence Edna O’Brien’s position as one of the most significant modern Irish writers is undisputed, and here, in this reissue of…
February 25, 2020 Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford Reviewed by Ali Business as Usual is an early work from the formidably productive writing partnership of Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford (both pseudonyms) –…
February 20, 2020 Kallocain by Karin Boye Translated by David McDuff Review by Karen Langley Our modern world often seems to be getting very close to a dystopian nightmare, and most…
February 18, 2020 My Caravaggio Style by Doris Langley Moore Review by Simon It’s always exciting when Dean Street Press announce the next batch of novels in their Furrowed Middlebrow series, chosen by Scott…
February 13, 2020 Veronica by Veronica Lake Reviewed by Harriet I wonder how many people today have even heard of Veronica Lake. There was a time, though a relatively brief one,…
February 11, 2020 Abigail by Magda Szabo Translated by Len Rix Reviewed by Harriet This novel, by the award-winning Hungarian novelist Magda Szabo, was first published in 1970. However, it is…
February 4, 2020 Postscript to Poison & Shadows Before by Dorothy Bowers Reviewed by Harriet I have a special liking for vintage crime novels and am always pleased when I discover an author previously unknown to…
January 30, 2020 Of Cats and Elfins by Sylvia Townsend Warner Reviewed by Harriet Just over a year ago I reviewed the newly published Handheld Press edition of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Kingdoms of Elfin, a…
January 23, 2020 Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Stanislaw Lem Translated by Louis Iribarne Review by Karen Langley Polish writer Stanislaw Lem was a prolific author of science fiction works, the most well known…
