The Harpy by Megan Hunter
Reviewed by Annabel Megan Hunter’s beautiful and poetic debut novella, The End We Started From (reviewed here for Shiny by Lucy Unwin), the story of a woman about to give…
Reviewed by Annabel Megan Hunter’s beautiful and poetic debut novella, The End We Started From (reviewed here for Shiny by Lucy Unwin), the story of a woman about to give…
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long Francesca Bassington sat in the drawing room of her house in Blue Street regaling herself and her estimable brother Henry with China tea and small cress…
Review by Simon Thomas You might be familiar with the beautiful little hardbacks from Notting Hill Editions, where they select essays and other writings from across the range of an…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I’m a proper fan of Kate Young and her Little Library books – they’re a delightful mix of recipes, reflection, and book recommendations, but even so…
Translated by Anne Goldstein Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Adolescence can be brutal, and in The Lying Life of Adults Elena Ferrante brings it out in all its ugly passions, grievances…
Translated by Antonina W. Bouis Reviewed by Karen Langley Science fiction writing often gets a bad press; dismissed as lightweight genre writing, mocked for some of the horrendous cover art…
Reviewed by Harriet This, obviously, is a book for those who like a good theatrical anecdote. I certainly do, and have been privy to many of them since I was…
Reviewed by Annabel I’ve always loved books about space and I still have my beloved Hamlyn guides on Astronomy and Exploring the Planets by Iain Nicholson from 1970 that got…
Reviewed by Harriet I’m rather ashamed to say that the only one of ‘multi-award-winning’ John Banville’s books I’ve read before is The Black-Eyed Blonde, which he published in 2014 under…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This extremely well-researched and authoritative book takes us through the Second World War, in the UK, the US, the Far and Middle East and Europe, through…
Reviewed by Annabel Kings College Hospital-based Professor Tim Spector’s name is, I hope, becoming more widely known in the UK since the pandemic began. He’s been involved in the development…
While Shiny New Books concentrates on the new, we enjoyed giving some of our reviewers room to share previously published – ie: ‘not Shiny New Books’ they were reading this…
‘They tried to hide the truth. But the camera never lies…’ Review by Basil Ransome-Davies So runs the publisher’s tagline on the front cover of S. J. Watson’s third novel. …
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth In one of the marketing quotes on its cover, The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida is described as “an elegantly cryptic, poetically plotted Murakami-esque whydunit.” Thematically…
Translated from the German by Sinéad Crowe Reviewed by Eleanor Updegraff In the Translator’s Note at the end of Daughters, Sinéad Crowe writes of her concern about successfully translating the…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton There are a few new knitting books, annuals, or journals in the offing that deal with Fair Isle or Shetland lace, but this is the first…
Review by Annabel Of all the books that were published a couple of weeks ago in this September’s post-lockdown publishing splurge, Susanna Clarke’s second novel, Piranesi, was the one I…
Reviewed by Harriet He was walking behind her, two steps behind. She did not look back. She said, “I’m not talking to you”. “I completely understand”. “If you did completely…
Translated from the Catalan by Douglas Suttle Reviewed by Eleanor Updegraff Joining the ranks of small presses dedicated to one particular region or language, Fum d’Estampa is a Barcelona–London go-between…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Opening notably and powerfully with a description of travelling through a traditional countryside location, innocent dry stone walls at first, then Civil War memories, a burning…
Review by Hayley Anderton The cover of this book is attractive, and the tag line ‘True Tales of a Shipwreck Hunter’ might always have made me pick it up to…
Translated by Sam Bett & David Boyd Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth When Breasts and Eggs appeared in bookshops alongside all the Murakamis, Convenience Store Woman and Stranger Weather in Tokyo…
Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2017 I reviewed JP Delaney’s brilliant psychological thriller The Girl Before on Shiny (here). All I know about the author is that he’s a man…
Translated by Katy Derbyshire Reviewed by Eleanor Updegraff This September sees the launch of V&Q Books, a brand-new publishing imprint with the mission of translating ‘remarkable writing from Germany’ for…