Twice Round the Clock by Billie Houston
Reviewed by Harriet It’s been a while since we reviewed a British Library Crime Classic on here, so it’s a pleasure to write about this recent one, the only novel…
My Life and I, by Betty Bendell
Reviewed by Harriet One of the problems with bounding spontaneously through life, I’ve discovered, is that people do tend to react to me quite strongly. I’d like to say that…
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
Translated by Ralph Manheim, illustrated by Marie-Alice Harel Review by Lory Widmer Hess He picked up the book and examined it from all sides. It was bound in copper-colored silk,…
Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
Translated by Elena Bormaschenko Illustrated and Introduced by Dave McKean Reviewed by Annabel I have long meant to read this SF classic by the Strugatsky brothers, published in 1972, and…
The Home by Penelope Mortimer
Reviewed by Harriet I’ve just finished reading this very good and very upsetting novel. It’s good because Mortimer was an excellent writer, vivid, perceptive, witty. But it’s upsetting because it’s…
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…
My Turn to Make the Tea by Monica Dickens
Reviewed by Julie Barham Monica Dickens wrote many novels, but her first three books were actually fictionalised memoirs of her first three “Jobs”, a varied collection. This book is the…
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…
Bird of Paradise by Ada Leverson
Reviewed by Harriet Bertha – Mrs Percy Kellynch – was known as a beauty. She was indeed improbably pretty, small, plump and very fair, with soft golden hair that was…
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Review by Lory Widmer Hess “The people who offer us the best insights into reality are often novelists,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has said, [The Guardian, 14 Jan 2020] and reading…
The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin
Review by Lory Widmer Hess The Farthest Shore, third book in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea sequence, was originally published in 1972. Picking it up for a reread today, in…
The Elvis Mysteries: Kill Me Tender & Blue Suede Clues by Daniel Klein
Review by Annabel Daniel Klein has featured at Shiny New Books once before, back in our early days when Victoria reviewed his 2014 non-fiction book Travels With Epicurus, a gentle…
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Review by Lory Widmer Hess I wouldn’t normally expect much of a book created as the novelization of a TV series, but in this case, you know—Neil Gaiman. His first…
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess In our upside-down world of reversed values, where what is most lasting and important is given the least amount of attention, while superficial, transitory things…
War Among Ladies by Eleanor Scott
Reviewed by Harriet First published in 1928, War Among Ladies is the latest offering from the British Library Women Writers series. I’ve read all of them, and reviewed almost all,…
Diplomatic Baggage: Adventures of a Trailing Spouse, by Brigid Keenan
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long Bridget Keenan worked as an editor on Nova magazine, and on the newspapers The Observer and The Sunday Times. I remember reading her pieces and thinking that…
Seven for a Secret by Mary Webb
Review by Rob Spence If you know Mary Webb’s work at all, it’s likely that you do so through her most successful novel, Precious Bane, published in 1926, and later…
Midsummer Murder by Clifford Witting
Review by Julie Barham This novel is in some senses an extraordinary achievement. It is a sort of locked area murder mystery when that area is in full public view….
Clothes Pegs by Susan Scarlett
Reviewed by Harriet This has been my first book by Susan Scarlett, but not my first book by its author. Because, if you didn’t already know, Susan Scarlett was a…
The Marble Staircase by Elizabeth Fair
Reviewed by Harriet Born in 1908, Elizabeth Fair published six successful novels between 1953 and 1960. But when she submitted her seventh, The Marble Staircase, to her agent, she was…
Cold Heaven by Brian Moore
Reviewed by Harriet This is the first book I’ve read by the multi-award-winning Irish Canadian author, but on the strength of this remarkable novel I’ve really been missing out. Published…
Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes
Reviewed by Harriet This is a body-swap novel – one of the first ever to be published. It’s very entertaining but also quite thought provoking. The swappers here are Polly…
Latchkey Ladies by Marjorie Grant
Reviewed by Harriet These girls, buffeting with the world as they did war-work, or any work that would support them, were apt to have moments when independence seemed the most…