Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries 1918-1938, edited by Simon Heffer
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long When I was a little girl I kept a diary. It was pink and fluffy with a lock and a key, easily broken if anybody had…
Bestiary by K-Ming Chang
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth “At a loss for words”, “in awe” and “confused but thrilled” are all phrases that I could use to describe my feelings when I reached the…
Keats by Lucasta Miller
Reviewed by Harriet It may not have escaped your attention that 2021 is the 200th anniversary of the death of John Keats. Yes, on 23 February 1821, the 25-year-old poet…
Cathedral by Ben Hopkins
Reviewed by Terence Jagger The cathedral, and the difficulties building it, both physical, financial, and aesthetic, dominate the early parts of the book, and brood over the whole story, so…
Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion
Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies Joan Didion knows that language is not a windowpane. Clarity, yes; transparency, no. To report a fact requires arranging words. That entails expressing an attitude, a…
Tang: A Shetland Story by J.J. Haldane Burgess
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Northus is a new project from Michael Walmer (who’s own reprint series will be familiar to many readers here) and the Shetland born, currently Edinburgh based,…
The Disciple by Michael Mallon
Reviewed by Annabel A novel about the increasingly toxic relationship between an old art historian and his young acolyte set in Florence was always going to be a book I…
Cary Grant, the Making of a Hollywood Legend by Mark Glancy
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long There is a scene in Charade, a 1964 film which Cary Grant made with Audrey Hepburn, in which the following exchange takes place: Reggie Lambert (Hepburn)…
Havana Year Zero by Karla Suárez
Translated by Christina MacSweeney Reviewed by Pete Freeth Havana Year Zero is a delightfully unusual detective story from Karla Suárez and translated into English by Christina MacSweeney. Set in the…
Hotel Cartagena by Simone Buchholz
Translated by Rachel Ward Reviewed by Annabel I’ve come late to German ‘Queen of Krimi’ Simone Buchholz’s novels. Hotel Cartagena is the ninth of her books featuring the Hamburg-based State…
The Panic Years by Nell Frizzell
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Every millennial woman should have this on her bookshelf’ says Pandora Sykes on the front of Nell Frizzell’s new book. New in the sense that it’s just…
She Come By It Natural by Sarah Smarsh
Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies Forty years ago I spent some time on the motel strip at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, to do some hiking in the magnificent Smoky Mountains. At…
The Ice by John Kåre Raake
Translated by Adam King Reviewed by Gill Davies John Kåre Rake is a successful Norwegian screen writer and this is his first novel. It’s a mysterious thriller that uses its…
Grayson’s Art Club: The Exhibition (Manchester Art Gallery, 2020)
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Back at the beginning of the first lockdown, Grayson Perry, potter and tapestry maker extraordinaire and no stranger to intimate and challenging TV shows, ran an…
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
Reviewed by Harriet Barbara Comyns seems to be enjoying a well-deserved renaissance at the moment. In addition to this one, just published by Daunt Books (with more to come later…
Biography & Memoir, Diaries
Ecology & Environment, Natural World
History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology
Non Fiction
Thin Places by Kerri ní Dochartaigh
Review by Peter Reason I have been totally absorbed in Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s Thin Places since it arrived in the morning mail and I read in the Preface: ‘The right…
Chauvo-Feminism: On Sex, Power and #MeToo by Sam Mills
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Remember the 1990s? It was a decade where lads’ mags decorated magazine shelves in supermarkets and where Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus with…
A Long Way From Douala by Max Lobe
Translated by Ros Schwartz Reviewed by Annabel I have a personal goal to increase diversity in my reading and am glad to have discovered the indie publisher HopeRoad. Founded in…
House With No Doors by Jeff Noon
Reviewed by Annabel Having been a fan of Jeff Noon’s cult spec fiction novels set in an alternate Manchester, I was surprised and delighted when his book Slow Motion Ghosts,…
How We Are Translated by Jessica Gaitán Johannesson
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth When an author is described as having a ”fresh voice”, I usually dismiss the description with a shrug; the attribute is repeated so often that it’s…
The Foolish Gentlewoman by Margery Sharp
Reviewed by Harriet At fifty-five, Isobel Brocken was still a nice-looking woman. She dated, of course, all her female friends said so – poor Isobel certainly dated; she was plump,…
Writers & Lovers by Lily King
Paperback review by Rebecca Foster I almost passed on the chance to read this because I’d gotten the impression that it was nothing more than a romantic comedy with a…
The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr.
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Robert Jones, Jr. had doubts about writing The Prophets: “Not only was the subject matter too uncharted but the psychic weight of it felt too heavy…
Astral Travel by Elizabeth Baines
Reviewed by Annabel …a lot of what I remember is not the same as what the others remember, which was partly what caused the trouble when I tried to write…