Good for a Girl: My Life Running in a Man’s World, by Lauren Fleshman
Review by Liz Dexter Millions of women carry an abundance of positive memories of their time in sport, but they also carry the invisible wounds of their sports experiences. As…
The Kind Worth Saving by Peter Swanson
Reviewed by Harriet You never know what you’re going to get with a Peter Swanson novel, though you can be sure of intelligent, challenging mysteries, interesting and almost invariably warped…
Darkness Manifesto: How light pollution threatens the ancient rhythms of life, by Johan Eklöf
Translated by Elizabeth DeNoma Review by Peter Reason I leave my front door late one evening and walk along the driveway we share with our neighbours towards the narrow unlit…
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie
Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2015 I reviewed Anthony Bale’s translation of The Book of Margery Kempe. Said to be the first autobiography written in the English language (though it…
The Accidental Detectorist by Nigel Richardson
Review by Julie Barham If you are interested in the process of finding objects from the past, this book, subtitled “Uncovering an Underground Obsession” will probably draw you in with…
Bournville by Jonathan Coe
Review by Annabel Having read nearly everything that Coe has published and reviewing four of them for Shiny (see here), the arrival of a new title from Coe is always…
This Sporting Life: Sport and Liberty in England, 1760 -1960, by Robert Colls
Review by Rob Spence Last November, in the midst of the Covid pandemic, strikes by essential workers, transport chaos, a cost-of-living crisis and the continuing devastation of the war in…
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…
Q&A with Charlotte Vassell, on The Other Half
Questions by Harriet Harriet: Hi Charlotte. Thanks for agreeing to answer some questions. I have to tell you that The Other Half was one of the most enjoyable novels I’ve…
The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell
Reviewed by Harriet Charlotte Vassell’s brilliant debut thriller begins with a dying girl on Hampstead Heath. This, as we discover later, is Clemmie, and she is, or was, an influencer….
The North Will Rise Again by Alex Niven
Review by Karen Langley If you’re at all familiar with the mass of political rhetoric spouted in the media over recent years, you’ll have seen the phrase ‘levelling up’ appearing…
Devils and Saints by Jean-Baptiste Andrea
Translated by Sam Taylor Reviewed by Harriet You know me. Just think, and you’ll remember. The old man who plays those public pianos that you see in various transport hubs….
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…
Fen, Bog and Swamp: A short history of peatland destruction and its role in the climate crisis, by Annie Proulx
Review by Peter Reason I used to keep my little yacht Coral, companion of many voyages and pilgrimages, on trot moorings on the Cattewater in Plymouth. On the further side…
Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement by James Vincent
Review by Liz Dexter James Vincent, a journalist for The Verge magazine, among other writing, got interested in metrology when he was sent to cover the changeover in Paris from…
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…
Jungle Nama: A story of the Sundarban & The Living Mountain: A fable for our times, by Amitav Ghosh
Reviews by Peter Reason On Christmas day my elder son gave me a copy of The Living Mountain, while my younger son a copy of Jungle Nama. They both know…
A Desperate Business: The Murder of Muriel McKay by Simon Farquhar
Reviewed by Harriet True crime is normally not a genre that attracts me in the least, so why am I reviewing this book? Well, because it tells a fascinating, moving,…
Hollywood: The Oral History by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson
Reviewed by Harriet Seven hundred and fifty pages sounds like a lot until you realise this book covers the entire history of Hollywood from its very beginnings to almost the…
Fantasy: How it Works, by Brian Attebery
Review by Helen Parry Over the last thirty years, the genre of fantasy has become more ‘respectable’. Although it has never been simply an excuse for plodding, Lord-of-the-Rings, Sword-and-Sorcery knock-offs,…
Shiny Archive Reading List #3 – Snow and Ice!
Compiled by Annabel In its ninth year, Shiny New Books passed the 2000 mark in published posts. We thought it would be fun to go back through our archives to…
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…
I Will Die in a Foreign Land by Kalani Pickhart
Review by Max Dunbar The Cathedral ‘I am not Ukrainian and I questioned whether it was my place to tell this story,’ Kalani Pickhart writes in the foreword to I Will…
Literary Cats by Judith Robinson & Scott Pack
Reviewed by Annabel This super hardback book from Bodleian Library Publishing has ‘Christmas gift for the cat lover in your life’ written all over it. Who would have thought that…