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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Reviewed by Harriet I first encountered Elizabeth Strout back in February 2017 – according to my review at the time [here] I’d spotted My Name is Lucy Barton on the…
Review by Peter Reason This book offers a revision of our understanding of human cultural history, and so opens possibilities for different, maybe more creative and liberating, arrangements for contemporary…
Review by Julie Barham A world turned upside down is the subject of this vivid historical novel set in an English city: politically a new royal house is in power,…
Review by Annabel I watched an awful lot of telly in the 1970s, my formative teenage years. It was thus inevitable that between the early evening slots occupied by Top…
Review by Liz Dexter Open to global flows of capital but largely closed to political change, Singapore is a reform-minded dictator’s dream, suggesting that a country can enjoy the prosperity…
Review by Annabel Amor Towles’s first novel, Rules of Civility, was published in 2011 when he was in his mid-forties. It was such a success he was able to retire…
Translated by Jhumpa Lahiri Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davis My initial recommendation for any readers of this novel would be to turn to Jhumpa Lahiri’s Afterword first. The translator is herself…
Review by Liz Dexter “For Japan’s lotus blossom, praying mantis and bear, we have bramble, wood louse and urban fox” Lev Parikian, a writer, birdwatcher and conductor, had already started…
Reviewed by Harriet Almost exactly a year ago, I reviewed John Banville’s Snow [here], an immensely enjoyable country house murder mystery. I particularly liked D.I. St John Strafford, the detective…
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked’. So we are introduced to the leading character in Colson Whitehead’s new novel. His two most…
Review by Anna Hollingworth “Literary lion” is one descriptor attached to Wole Soyinka. For one, there’s a mane-like quality to his hair, a kind of halo circling his face. More…
