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Biography & Memoir, Diaries Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

Birds, Beasts and Bedlam: Turning My Farm into an Ark for Lost Species by Ben Gow

Review by Liz Dexter If you wish to bludgeon badgers or beavers or remove peregrine falcons and hen harrier chicks from their nests, a way can be found. If you…

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Shiny New Books October 22, 2024
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Fiction

Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd

Reviewed by Harriet  William Boyd’s latest novel has been almost overwhelmingly greeted with admiration and praise. ‘A Spy Story to rival Restless’ is the Guardian’s headline, harking back to Boyd’s…

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Shiny New Books October 10, 2024
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Art & Design, Craft & Photography Non Fiction

Material: The Art of Handcrafting Beautiful Objects in a Digital Age by Nick Kary

Review by Frances Spurrier Kary starts his book by saying that he wants to help understand the relationship we all have fashioning our lives within the material structure of the…

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Shiny New Books October 8, 2024
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Art & Design, Craft & Photography Biography & Memoir, Diaries Non Fiction Uncategorized

Portrait of the Art Dealer as a Young Man: New York in the Sixties, by Michael Findlay

Review by Annabel My fascination with the 1960s (the decade in which I was a child), will never die. Add in the world of art and a New York setting…

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Shiny New Books October 3, 2024
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BookBuzz Books into Film Entertainment, Media

Book to Screen: In Development, 2024 and Beyond

By Arti After looking at forthcoming releases in my last post, we turn to books that are being adapted and are currently in development or in production. James (2024) by Percival Everett…

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Shiny New Books October 1, 2024
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Fiction

Rare Singles by Benjamin Myers

Review by Annabel Myers is one of those British authors who writes something totally different every time he puts pen to paper, with the exception that almost all of his…

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Shiny New Books September 26, 2024
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Fiction

The Watermark by Sam Mills

Reviewed by Harriet Sam Mills is not a prolific writer, but her books are well worth waiting for.  In 2012 she published The Quiddity of Will Self, which she described…

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Shiny New Books September 25, 2024
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Biography & Memoir, Diaries Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

The Ghost Lake by Wendy Pratt

Review by Peter Reason Ghost Lake is a paleolithic, extinct lake that lies between the Yorkshire Wolds and Scarborough. In prehistoric times it was a real lake, the centre of…

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Shiny New Books September 24, 2024
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Biography & Memoir, Diaries Non Fiction

Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation by Emily van Duyne

Written by Victoria Best There’s a lot going on in Emily van Duyne’s intriguingly hybrid work on Sylvia Plath, a book that has its feet in scholarship and its head…

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Shiny New Books September 19, 2024
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Anthology Fiction

Warsaw Tales, selected and translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Review by Rob Spence The only time I have been in Warsaw was in 1988, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. …

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Shiny New Books September 18, 2024
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BookBuzz Books into Film

Books into Film: Fall 2024

By Arti The annual film festival season kicks off in late August, and come September, there are arrays of new offerings on streaming platforms. I haven’t done actual research, but…

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Shiny New Books September 17, 2024
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Fiction

Table for Two by Amor Towles

Review by Annabel Until this year Towles has delighted his readers with novels of increasing thickness including A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway, both of which I adored,…

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Shiny New Books August 29, 2024
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Fiction Reprint

Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton

Reviewed by Harriet The spring night drew them into its deepening embrace. The ripples of the lake had gradually widened and faded into a silken smoothness, and high above the mountains the…

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Shiny New Books August 27, 2024
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History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology Non Fiction

The King’s Loot: The Greatest Royal Jewellery Heist in History by Richard Wallace

Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long   It is always misleading to read the serialisation of a book in the newspapers. The paper in question will always focus on the more sensational aspects…

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Shiny New Books August 22, 2024
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Fiction

Kala by Colin Walsh

Review by Annabel Kala was the literary thriller to be seen reading last summer when first published. A high-profile debut from a young Irish author, I saw many favourable reviews…

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Shiny New Books August 21, 2024
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Art & Design, Craft & Photography Non Fiction

All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud and Fine Art by Orlando Whitfield

Reviewed by Harriet This is the second book about fraud I’ve reviewed this year, the first being Joseph Hone’s impressive The Book Forger. Obviously, as you can tell from the…

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Shiny New Books August 20, 2024
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology Non Fiction Travel & the World

Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain by Corinne Fowler

In expanding and resourcing public understandings of the countryside’s colonial past, we can tell our islands’ stories and address colonial legacies from a position of knowledge rather than fear. Corinne…

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Shiny New Books August 13, 2024
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History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology Non Fiction Travel & the World

Airplane Mode: Travels in the Ruins of Tourism by Shahnaz Habib

Review by Liz Dexter How intrepid you are as a traveler depends, at least partly, on how entitled you feel to travel. On whether there’s an army base nearby with…

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Shiny New Books August 8, 2024
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Fiction

The Trap by Ava Glass

Reviewed by Harriet Ava Glass has been proclaimed as the new queen of spy fiction.  I’m not in a position to judge this, as The Trap is the first of…

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Shiny New Books August 2, 2024
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Fiction

The Dark Side of the Sky by Francesco Dimitri

Review by Max Dunbar The question The Dark Side of the Sky asks is simple and fascinating. Can an apocalyptic cult ever be right? The Bastion of Southern Italy is not, on…

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Shiny New Books August 1, 2024
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BookBuzz Interview, Q&A

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…

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Shiny New Books July 30, 2024
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Fiction Reprint

The Gulls Fly Inland by Sylvia Thompson

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…

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Shiny New Books July 30, 2024
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Essays Non Fiction

Cairn by Kathleen Jamie 

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,…

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Shiny New Books July 25, 2024
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Biography & Memoir, Diaries Entertainment, Media Non Fiction

The Blues Brothers by Daniel De Visé

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…

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Shiny New Books July 23, 2024
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