Death Goes on Skis – Nancy Spain
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Nancy Spain’s name rang a bell when I saw Virago were going to republish some of her books, but I couldn’t quite place it. I think…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Nancy Spain’s name rang a bell when I saw Virago were going to republish some of her books, but I couldn’t quite place it. I think…
Reviewed by Harriet It’s exactly ten years since I discovered Barbara Comyns for the first time. Born in 1909, she had an unusual upbringing and a somewhat chequered career, both…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women 1890 -1940 was a standout book from last year – it’s still genuinely one of the most unsettling anthologies I’ve…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I spent some time looking up the definition of Weird as opposed to Horror in preparation for writing this, and now have the perfect opportunity to…
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long Francesca Bassington sat in the drawing room of her house in Blue Street regaling herself and her estimable brother Henry with China tea and small cress…
Translated by Antonina W. Bouis Reviewed by Karen Langley Science fiction writing often gets a bad press; dismissed as lightweight genre writing, mocked for some of the horrendous cover art…
While Shiny New Books concentrates on the new, we enjoyed giving some of our reviewers room to share previously published – ie: ‘not Shiny New Books’ they were reading this…
Reviewed by Karen Langley Rose Macaulay is mainly known for her 1956 novel The Towers of Trebizond; yet she was an astonishingly prolific writer, publishing her first novel in 1906…
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 good introductions. I’m also going to…
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 novel because it is both a…
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 Gaiman puts it in his introduction,…
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 when I saw that OUP was…
Paperback review by Rob Spence It comes as a bit of a shock to realise that Ian Rankin has now published well over thirty novels since his début in 1986,…
Reviewed by Annabel Hayes, who was born in London but emigrated to the US as a child, first came to attention as a poet before WWII. He then served in…
Translated by Yumiko Yamazaki Review by Terence Jagger This Japanese detective thriller is set in the 1940s and so is relatively ‘modern’, but only in that calendar sense: in style…
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. Now, the same publishers have revived…
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 name that springs to mind. The creator…
Reviewed by Harriet When the British Library announced the first three titles in their new Women Writers series, I was delighted see that one of them was Chatterton Square. I…
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, rich, or distinctive in character’, and…
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 women writers: ‘a curated collection of…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This is a new ‘compact’ edition of this book, with a revised final chapter bringing it all up to date, and reproductions of three new David…
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 her 1999 short biography, she tackles…
Reviewed by Ali Business as Usual is an early work from the formidably productive writing partnership of Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford (both pseudonyms) – and it is utterly delightful. A…
Translated by David McDuff Review by Karen Langley Our modern world often seems to be getting very close to a dystopian nightmare, and most of our visions of that kind…