Reviewed by Liz Dexter Being born in the early 70s, I reached the age where we develop interests just as the first cheaper home computers were coming in – the…
Review by Rob Spence When we think of First World War poets, it’s safe to say that Hugh Lofting will not be the first name that springs to mind. The creator…
Review by Terence Jagger I found this book absolutely fascinating. I have always been fairly confident in my abilities as a navigator (though with occasional disasters) but I have always…
Review by Liz Dexter The reason this book is in the news now is that it has been shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize (more on the shortlist here). I…
Review by Annabel Gerald Jacobs is literary editor of the Jewish Chronicle. He grew up in and around Brixton in the 1950s and 1960s, and Pomeranski, his second novel, is…
Translated by Jamie Lee Searle Review by Eleanor Updegraff Ever since Han Kang and translator Deborah Smith won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize for The Vegetarian, there has been…
Review by Liz Dexter Grayson Perry has achieved the status of National Treasure in the hearts and minds of a large proportion of the British public, writing and broadcasting on…
Translated by Sam Taylor Reviewed by Harriet Back in 1977, Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room was published. On the cover was the bold (and possibly correct) statement that ‘This novel…
Review by Rebecca Foster From the Cape of Good Hope to the Arctic Circle, Dee tracks the spring as it travels north. From first glimpse to last gasp, moving between…
Review by Annabel If you enjoy a contemporary horror novel laced with style and humour, you need look no further than the work of Grady Hendrix. I discovered him with…
Softback review by Liz Dexter This quietly stunning book will appeal to anyone interested in art, landscape, walking, geology, geography, maps and ancient monuments. Deceptively simple paintings reveal both the…
Review by Peter Reason In 2013, a spring storm uncovered, on the shores of Norfolk, the oldest traces of humanity discovered outside Africa: fossil footprints made by early humans 850,000…
Reviewed by Harriet When the British Library announced the first three titles in their new Women Writers series, I was delighted see that one of them was Chatterton Square. I…
Reviewed by Harriet As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wordsworth, one of England’s most celebrated poets, much loved by many (apart,…
Review by Anna Hollingsworth Will Harris has been described as one of the most important young poets in the UK, and his debut collection more than justifies that epithet. In…
Translated by Stephen Twilley Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies An adjective frequently applied to Curzio Malaparte is ‘colourful’. To the Cambridge dictionary it means ‘vivid, rich, or distinctive in character’, and…
By Annabel Just under a month ago, we experienced an absolute ‘dis-ah-ster’ (as Craig Revel Horwood would say) at Shiny – which just goes to prove how a little knowledge…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Evie Wyld’s third novel has the most stunning opening I’ve encountered in a long time. In under a page and a half, it describes a six-year-old…
Paperback review by Annabel I had been reading and loving the late Clive James’ last book, an anthology of his writing on Philip Larkin (reviewed here by Karen), when up…
Today we are delighted to be taking part in a short blog tour for the novel ‘Pomeranski’ by Gerald Jacobs, just published by Quartet Books. Gerald Jacobs is the literary…
Review by Hayley Anderton I know it’s not the easiest time to get baking supplies, or books, or enough exercise to work off the baking that you can do, but…
Review by Ann Maybe as much as twenty years ago I remember a librarian colleague at the University where I was then working saying to me, “Read Anne Tyler”. Most…
Translated by Deborah Dawkin Review by Harriet Lars Mytting, a Norwegian author, has had great acclaim for his two previous books – the non-fiction Norwegian Wood, a surprise bestseller about…
Review by Annabel Natasha Pulley’s 2015 debut novel, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, which I reviewed for Shiny here, is still one of the best first novels I’ve read. Set…
