A Shiny Merry Christmas
From Annabel and Harriet After a tumultuous 2020, what with lockdown, accidentally deleting Shiny New Books and having to rebuild it totally from scratch (read more about that disaster here!), Shiny…
Skylark by Alice O’Keefe
Review by Max Dunbar The Arrow of Hope Dorothy Parker’s ‘Unfortunate Coincidence’ goes like this: By the time you swear you’re his,Shivering and sighing,And he vows his passion isInfinite, undying…
Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs
Reviewed by Harriet This delightful novel is part of the latest batch of the British Library Women Writers series. I’ve reviewed a few of these on here, most recently the…
Hey Hi Hello: Five decades of Pop Culture from Britain’s Broadcasting DJ Pioneer by Annie Nightingale
Review by Liz Dexter Nightingale was the first female DJ on Radio One, having been a journalist and live TV presenter before then and ready for the tough time she…
The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky, A Crime and Its Punishment by Kevin Birmingham
Review by Karen Langley The bicentenary of the birth of Fyodor Dostoevsky has seen a flurry of books about the man and his work. I covered Alex Christofi’s Dostoevsky in…
Everybody: A Book About Freedom by olivia laing
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Olivia Laing has established herself as a group biographer par excellence, taking as her subjects alcoholic writers for the superb The Trip to Echo Spring (2013,…
Her Diaries and Notebooks, by Patricia Highsmith, edited by Anna von Planta
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies What a prodigious event this book is. Highsmith was an assiduous note-keeper and diarist. The calendar spread is 1941-1995. The editor has condensed ‘an estimated eight…
Lily: A Tale of Revenge by Rose Tremain
Reviewed by Harriet From the first moment that we meet Lily Mortimer, we know her secret. We know it because she dreams of her own death – not a peaceful…
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
Review by Anna Hollingsworth Imagine if a book began to narrate your story to you. What kind of voice would that be? Would it have the kind of softness suited…
Are We Having Fun Yet? By Lucy Mangan
Review by Annabel Those of you who’ve read journalist and author Lucy Mangan’s ‘memoir of childhood reading’, Bookworm, (which Liz reviewed here) will rejoice that she has now written a…
These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
Reviewed by Harriet I’m a great admirer of Ann Patchett’s novels. I read Bel Canto when it first came out and have loved her writing ever since – here’s my…
The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, edited by David Wondrich with Noah Rothbaum
Review by Hayley Anderton The first book I met when I started working in the wine trade was Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine. Every shop I worked in…
The Swift and the Harrier by Minette Walters
Reviewed by Julie Barham This is an historical novel with much to recommend it, and as it is created by a world famous crime writer there is also the probability…
‘Passing’ by Nella Larsen, from Novella to Screen
Chicago born author Nella Larsen is the daughter of a Dutch mother and a father of mixed race Afro-Caribbean from Danish West Indies. With that multiplicity in racial background and…
Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi
Review by Simon Thomas As a place to be trapped, a train has a good precedent. Whether Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, or…
Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro
Translated by Frances Riddle Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite Claudia Piñeiro is an author from Argentina who, so far, has mostly been published in English as a crime writer. As the…
Adam O’Riordan answers questions on The Falling Thread
Interview by Harriet As an already successful poet and short-story writer, what made you turn to the novel? Was it a sudden decision or a long-term ambition? It was a…
The Falling Thread by Adam O’Riordan
Reviewed by Harriet Unlike some of my fellow reviewers, I tend not to seize upon debut novels. Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I usually prefer to read someone who already…
Which Way by Theodora Benson (Blog Tour)
Reviewed by Harriet Published in 1931 and newly reissued in the British Library Women Writers Series, this is a fascinating book in a number of ways. If you’ve read anything…
Allegorizings by Jan Morris
Review by Liz Dexter “If I had any moral principles to declare, I came to realize, they were extremely simplistic. First, there was the supreme importance of kindness as a…
Silverview by John le Carré
Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies John le Carré, eh? Can’t do credible working-class dialogue, draws sympathetic female characters but rather abstractly, plots convoluted and full of holes, rather colourless writing style…
Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden by Benedict Macdonald & Nicholas Gates
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Bristol friends and BBC colleagues Ben Macdonald and Nick Gates set out to chronicle a year in the life of a traditional Herefordshire orchard that has…
Oldladyvoice by Elisa Victoria
Translated by Charlotte Whittle Review by Anna Hollingsworth When I pick up a book with a child narrator, it’s always with trepidation. I won’t name any culprits, but I’ve learned…
George V: Never a Dull Moment, by Jane Ridley
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long A few years ago I read Jane Ridley’s biography of Edward VII, which I found a fascinating, fully rounded portrayal of his life and personality. In…