July 10, 2014 City of Endless Night by Milo M. Hastings Reviewed by Simon Thomas My heart would normally sink at any blurb which began ‘The year is 2151.’ I am perfectly willing to concede…
July 10, 2014 Don’t Point That Thing At Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell Don’t Point That Thing At Me was originally published in 1972, and is the first in a trilogy of novels featuring…
July 8, 2014 August Folly, Summer Half and The Brandons by Angela Thirkell Reviewed by Claire/The Captive Reader When I started blogging in early 2010, I had never heard of Angela Thirkell. Then, slowly, I started hearing…
April 24, 2014 Discovering Mary Hocking In The Back Of Another Book Written by Ali Hope There is probably no greater joy for a book lover than to discover a new author. I found Mary Hocking…
April 24, 2014 The ‘Fairley Family Trilogy’ by Mary Hocking Reviewed by Ali Hope The Fairley family trilogy by Mary Hocking has remained among her most popular novels. They were among a small number…
April 23, 2014 The Runaways by Elizabeth Goudge Reviewed by Rachel Fenn Hesperus Press, known for their very attractive reprints of minor works by major authors, has recently launched a new arm…
April 22, 2014 The Cornish Coast Murder and The Lake District Murder by John Bude Reviewed by Harriet Devine ‘That’s just where I must part company with you, Inspector’, said the Vicar with a gentle smile. ‘I’m rather a…
April 21, 2014 Territorial Rights by Muriel Spark Reviewed by Simon Thomas The vagaries of reputation are curious. If you ask a hundred people to name a novel by Muriel Spark, then…
April 18, 2014 Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter Reviewed by Jodie One of the children’s classics I didn’t read when I was a child was Pollyanna. It had been described to me as a story…
April 17, 2014 Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West Review by Simon Thomas I toyed with trying to write this entire review of Miss Lonelyhearts (originally published in 1933, now reissued in a beautiful edition…
April 15, 2014 I Was A Stranger by John Hackett Reviewed by Simon Thomas In a year where we almost certainly going to be inundated with books about World War One, it seems a…
April 11, 2014 Hangsaman, The Bird’s Nest, and The Sundial by Shirley Jackson Reviewed by Simon Thomas You can more or less divide readers’ familiarity with Shirley Jackson’s works into separate levels. Of course, the broadest (particularly…
April 10, 2014 Money by Émile Zola Translated by Valerie Minogue Reviewed by Harriet Devine ‘It’s very difficult to write a novel about money. It’s cold, icy, lacking in interest’. So…
April 8, 2014 A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery Reviewed by Mahathi G A Tangled Web is one of L M Montgomery’s ‘adult’ novels. As such, it is rather different from Montgomery’s usual. There…
April 8, 2014 Appointment with Yesterday and With No Crying by Celia Fremlin Reviewed by Harriet Devine. Why on earth have we not heard of Celia Fremlin? Well, I certainly hadn’t until recently, and having discovered her…
