A Bookshop of One’s Own by Jane Cholmeley
Review by Karen Langley Back in the 20th century, the world was a very different place to live in if you were female and/or gay. Equal pay was a pipe…
Dublin Tales, edited by Paul Delaney and Eve Patton
Reviewed by Harriet If you gave me a choice between a collection of short stories and a novel, I’d choose the novel every time. I suppose it’s something to do…
Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time by Sheila Liming
Review by Annabel The New Year always brings with it a slew of self-help books about becoming the better/fitter/healthier/wealthier you. I look at these books and think – really? Why…
Shiny Archive Reading List #2: Character Duos
Compiled by Annabel In its ninth year, Shiny New Books has passed the 2000 mark in published posts. We thought it would be good to go back through our archives…
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
Reviewed by Harriet ‘There was evil in the air of London’, thinks Detective Inspector Frobisher, recently put in charge of Bow Street Police Station. A Devon man, often homesick for…
Urgent Matters by Paula Rodriguez, translated by Sarah Moses
Reviewed by Harriet Dust raised by the impact falls slowly on the bodies. The thickest particles are struck by a shaft of light, and amid the sparkling dust, a St…
The Book of the Most Precious Substance, by Sara Gran
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies ‘And then at last I began to realise how terrible a thing it was, the dream that you make come true.’ confesses the eponymous heroine of…
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…
The Right Sort of Girl by Anita Rani
Review by Liz Dexter How on earth did I get to where I am today? This is no overnight success story, this is not a fairy tale, not in the…
The Book Lover’s Quiz Book: Novel Conundrums by Gary Wigglesworth
Reviewed by Annabel Gary Wigglesworth’s twitter feed was something of a godsend on Tuesday evenings during furlough earlier this summer. The former bookseller who now works in publishing had been…
Expectation by Anna Hope
Review by Max Dunbar Looking back at her hard living past, singer Florence Welch writes in Vogue: I wonder if my young self would be horrified at my Friday nights now:…
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
Review by Ann Maybe as much as twenty years ago I remember a librarian colleague at the University where I was then working saying to me, “Read Anne Tyler”. Most…
You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce
Review by Hayley Anderton You Let Me In is Camilla Bruce’s debut novel, and it marks her out as an author to watch. It is impressively assured with a very…
The Sect Of Angels by Andrea Camilleri
Translated by Stephen Sartarelli Reviewed by Gill Davies In addition to the Inspector Montalbano novels, best known to English readers from the TV adaptations in the BBC4 Saturday night crime…
Ice by Anna Kavan
Reviewed by Karen Langley Ice has come a long way since its first publication by its champion, Peter Owen, in 1968. My initial encounter with it was in a striking Picador…
Patchinko by Min Jin Lee
Review by Gill Davies Patchinko is a very different novel from Min Jin Lee’s earlier Free Food for Millionaires, which I reviewed here. It is a historical novel covering nearly…
Caught in the Revolution by Helen Rappaport
Reviewed by Rob Spence We seem to have a glut of popular historians at the moment. Simon Schama, Tom Holland, Peter Frankopan, Lara Feigel, Mary Beard are among the names…
The Moor by William Atkins
Reviewed by Christine Harding The moors of his childhood gave William Atkins a lifelong passion for moorlands, and in this book he travels through some of England’s most inhospitable and…
Monique Roffey – A Profile
By Victoria Best Monique Roffey has been on a creative roll for the best part of a decade and has seen her work rise to prominence and gain critical acclaim;…
The Eds Discuss: Book Covers
By the Shiny New Books Editors Never mind the old saw, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’, how important IS cover design, bearing in mind the recent issues over…
Hild by Nicola Griffith
Reviewed by Helen That night she dreamt Fursey was talking to Hereswith. It’s what women do: weave the web, pull the strings, herd into the corner. It’s their only power. Then she…
An Episode of Sparrows and The Dark Horse by Rumer Godden
Reviewed by Harriet Devine Rumer Godden is a remarkable writer, and far less well known today than she deserves to be. So, Virago’s decision to reissue some of her novels…