Interview with Kate Macdonald of Handheld Press
Interview by Harriet Harriet: Hi Kate – thanks for agreeing to do this. We know you’re working on a memoir of your Handheld days, so this will be a special…
Interview by Harriet Harriet: Hi Kate – thanks for agreeing to do this. We know you’re working on a memoir of your Handheld days, so this will be a special…
Reviewed by Harriet October 3rd 1939 Inaction is difficult to bear. Since I am forced into inaction, here, I shall write. Not, as I have written in peace-time, brief things…
Review by Peter Reason I am sitting under the old apple tree in our Orchard on a sunny summer afternoon, looking over the meadow grass swaying in the light breeze,…
An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv and the Making of an American Film Classic Review by Annabel Full disclosure: I saw The Blues Brothers on the first day of…
Review by Liz Dexter Fascinatingly, many of the small towns I found along the way seemed to be stuck in a time warp. I cycled past rusted 1940s Studebakers and…
Review by Annabel Ever since his first two books, Stuff Matters (2012) and Liquid (2018), I’ve been waiting for Miodownik to complete his states of matter trilogy with a book…
Reviewed by Harriet This intriguing title indicates the presence of two separate works by Faith Compton Mackenzie, of whom you’ve probably never heard. The name will ring a bell though,…
Review by Annabel Back in March, Shiny took part in the blogtour for Melville House’s initial books in its ‘Futures’ series. The first books in the series of small format…
Review by Simon Thomas In the past decade, a trend has developed where the lines between biography and autobiography, between non-fiction and memoir, have collapsed in on themselves. The author…
Review by Karen Langley When most people think of the high profile spies of the 20th century, names like Burgess, McLean and of course Kim Philby are probably the first…
Translated by Alexander Booth Review by Karen Langley 2024 is the centenary of the death of author Franz Kafka and the year has seen a flurry of interest focusing on…
Reviewed by Harriet Here at Shiny, I’m proud to say, we have now covered every aspect of Edith Nesbit’s wonderful fiction writing. Best known to most people as a writer…
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long Queen Elizabeth II had fifteen prime ministers during her reign. Queen Victoria had fourteen. The weekly meetings between Queen Elizabeth and her prime minister were one…
Review by Peter Reason James Bradley, the Australian novelist and essayist, chooses an apt epigraph from Arthur C. Clarke for his book: ‘How inappropriate to call this planet “Earth”, when…
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Thomas James Wise (1859-1937) was a bibliophile and thief’, says Wikipedia. He was indeed. As Joseph Hone puts it in this fascinating exploration of ‘the most sensational…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This book is also about me and about why anyone in the right mind would choose to be a psychiatrist. I hope that it serves as…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter I would like to say to the non-African reader of this book that I hope I have demonstrated that Africa has a history, that it is…
Review by Karen Langley Nicholas Borodin (as he is billed here) is something of a man of mystery, at least for the English speaking reader. Apart from his memoir, One…
I am a very critical reader; there are not many books that I unreservedly admire. So it is notable that when I finished reading Thunderclap, I closed the covers, turned…
Edited and annotated by Robert Chandler Review by Karen Langley The last decade or so has seen a resurgence of interest in Russian émigré writing with a host of forgotten…
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Anyone who has read the four books I have written about my adventures with ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne, may be surprised by this one. Where is Hawthorne?…
Translated by Julia Sanches Review by Michael Eaude Lemons and Cherries Most reviews I write are of Catalan fiction translated to English. I often wonder whether my commitment to learning…
Review by Rob Spence Birthright. The word smacks of entitlement, doesn’t it? The idea of being privileged because of the status of your parents. There’s plenty of entitlement on show…
Reviewed by Harriet Who remembers reading The Eagle of the Ninth? First published in 1954, when Sutcliff was 34, it is set in Roman Britain and tells the story of…