Young Stalin, by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies No one expects an approving biography of Joseph Stalin any more than they do the Spanish Inquisition. He is a murderous monster, a devil from a…
Frontline by Dr Hilary Jones
Review by Julie Barham Medical knowledge and techniques were vastly increased during and immediately after the First World War, as the loss of so many fighting men was dwarfed by…
Dead Famous by Greg Jenner
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies Andy Warhol (if it was he, who disowned the soft impeachment) was kidding when he said that in the future everyone would be world-famous for fifteen…
A Room of Her Own: Inside the Homes and Lives of Creative Women by Robyn Lea
Review by Liz Dexter Robyn Lea has a theory that there is a new Renaissance happening among creative women, who are expressing themselves and their creativity in every aspect of…
Traitor King: The scandalous exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, by Andrew Lownie
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long When I was about eleven years old I remember reading an article about the Abdication in the Sunday Express, which my mother used to take each…
Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki
Translated by Karen Van Dyck Review by Karen Langley Coming of age stories are a perennial favourite in both classic and modern literature; and although much past writing has focused…
No Touching by Ketty Rouf
Translated by Tina Kover Review by Annabel Italian-born novelist Ketty Rouf won France’s Prix du Premier Roman 2020 (First Novel award) for her debut No Touching, written in French and…
The Promise by Damon Galgut
Review by Anna Hollingsworth Damon Galgut has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize twice. The Good Doctor delved into a young doctor’s angry melancholy in a remote rural hospital in…
Five Modern Noh Plays by Yukio Mishima
Translated by Donald Keene Review by Terence Jagger This is a slightly misleading title for a new book, as the “modern” Noh plays were written in the 1950s (and translated…
History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology
Mind and Body, Medicine, Psychology
Myths & Legends, Fairytale
Non Fiction
The Oxford Illustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic, edited by Owen Davies
Reviewed by Harriet If there’s one thing that this impressively learned and wide-ranging volume amply demonstrates, it’s that an interest in magic and witchcraft has persisted through the ages in…
Faber & Faber: The Untold Story by Toby Faber
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long In 2019 I attended a lecture given by Toby Faber and found him to be as stylish and witty as his illustrious friends and relations, and…
Clothes… and other things that matter by Alexandra Shulman
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth The last item of clothing that I bought was a pair of pink dungarees from M&S children’s department nearly two years ago. So I must confess…
Sicilia by Ben Tish
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton This book turned up out of the blue when it was still cold and miserable back in the spring (thank you very much Bloomsbury), I spent…
An Evening with Claire by Gaito Gazdanov
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Review by Karen Langley Recent years have seen an upturn of interest in Russian émigré authors from the 20th century; there were, of course, famous names…
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth In The Bastard of Istanbul, a mysterious curse kills one family’s men before their time; 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in This Strange World tells the story…
Architecture, Homes & Gardens
Ecology & Environment, Natural World
History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology
Non Fiction
A Tomb With a View by Peter Ross
Reviewed by Gill Davies Just a few days ago my partner and fellow Shiny reviewer Basil Ransome Davies found a new walk to do in these times of Covid-inspired local…
Daughters of the Labyrinth by Ruth Padel
Reviewed by Lory Widmer-Hess When we went to Crete last October (during a brief window when travel was possible), I knew little of the island’s history beyond the myth of…
Line by Niall Bourke
Reviewed by Annabel If I searched, I could probably fill a small shelf full of novels that have a sub-niche of their own that is the ‘queue’. Within that we…
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Reviewed by Harriet Jean Hanff Korelitz has appeared twice on Shiny before, both times reviewed by me. The first novel was You Should Have Known (reviewed here); you may not…
Three Rooms by Jo Hamya
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth At one point in Jo Hamya’s Three Rooms, the narrator discovers the communal kitchen in her Oxford house in a desperately filthy state, with surfaces covered…
Broken Greek by Pete Paphides
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Stuck with a bunch of friends who seemed to think I was something other than what I was; guilty about growing up British in a Greek…
Heaven by Meiko Kawakami
Translated by Sam Bett & David Boyd Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth My first encounter with Mieko Kawakami — as for most of us relying on English translations — was her…
The Snow Line by Tessa McWatt
Reviewed by Harriet A disparate group of four total strangers meet at a wedding in the Punjab, India. Three of them are young and of Indian heritage; the fourth is…
The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura
Translated by Lucy North Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth There’s a particular skill to pulling off a character who is objectively reprehensible but nevertheless wins over the sympathies of the reader….