Learning Languages in Early Modern England by John Gallagher
Review by Liz Dexter Has it ever struck you that before England obtained its empire, no one else in the world bothered to speak the language? Did you realise what…
Postscript to Poison & Shadows Before by Dorothy Bowers
Reviewed by Harriet I have a special liking for vintage crime novels and am always pleased when I discover an author previously unknown to me. This has happened a lot…
Of Cats and Elfins by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Reviewed by Harriet Just over a year ago I reviewed the newly published Handheld Press edition of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Kingdoms of Elfin, a collection of strange, glittering, fascinating stories,…
Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide, by Barry Forshaw
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies When I started teaching popular fiction courses forty years ago, having always been more drawn to Jesse James than to Henry James, there were sneers aplenty…
Art Essentials: Impressionism by Ralph Skea
Review by Liz Dexter Another volume in the excellently done Art Essentials series, this volume on Impressionism is written by Ralph Skea, an artist and academic who has published several…
So Brightly at the Last by Ian Shircore
Review by Rob Spence In one important respect, this book was outdated at the moment it was published: its subject, Clive James, having endured a terminal illness for ten years,…
Why Women Read Fiction by Helen Taylor
Review by Gill Davies Women read a lot more fiction than men; they also buy more books, attend writers’ events, blog, exchange ideas, and form reading groups. Helen Taylor’s research…
Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Stanislaw Lem
Translated by Louis Iribarne Review by Karen Langley Polish writer Stanislaw Lem was a prolific author of science fiction works, the most well known of which is “Solaris” (which has…
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
Review by Anna Hollingsworth Let’s face it: anything involving human tragedies, poverty, despair, abuse and crime offers a wealth of material for a novelist of any genre. At the risk…
Happy Ever After by C. C. MacDonald
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies Adultery. It crops up everywhere. Few grown-up pastimes are as popular as disobeying the sixth Commandment. Where would novels, plays and movies be without it? It’s…
Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World by Marcia Bjornerud
Review by Peter Reason I have on my desk three pieces of rock, collected during my ecological pilgrimage on in the west coast of Scotland, that I wrote about in…
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
Review by Annabel This short novel told in letters took me pleasantly by surprise. Within pages I was hooked, and I read it in one extended sitting, shedding a tear…
The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo
Translated by Louise Heal Kawai Reviewed by Harriet This delightful reprint from Pushkin Press is widely viewed as one of Japan’s greatest murder mysteries. Amazingly this is its first English…
Tales of the Troubled Dead: Ghost Stories in Cultural History – Catherine Belsey
Review by Hayley Anderton Tales of the weird have a deep hold on our collective imagination, and of all the things we’ve given credence to over the course of human…
The Last Two Maigrets by Georges Simenon
Maigret and the Informer, translated by William HobsonMaigret and Monsieur Charles, translated by Ros Schwarz Review by Basil Ransome-Davies Simenon was a supercharged writing machine, a prodigious figure whose élan…
Sorry for the Dead by Nicola Upson
Reviewed by Harriet Here at Shiny we are great admirers of Nicola Upson’s books – her most recent novel, Stanley and Elsie, was reviewed here, and we’ve also covered two…
The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North
Review by David Harris A new book by Claire North is always a very special event in my reading calendar, and William Abbey didn’t disappoint. In something of the same vein as…
Blackberry & Wild Rose by Sonia Velton
Review by Helen Skinner It’s 1768 and Sara Kemp has just arrived in Spitalfields, the London parish which has become home to a thriving community of Huguenot silk weavers. Sara…
Tea at Four O’Clock by Janet McNeill
Review by Harriet The gates of her prison were open, but she lacked the courage to go through them to whatever new country was waiting for her on the other…
The Measure of a Man by Marco Malvaldi
Review by Terence Jagger I was intrigued to see this novel on my doormat: Malvaldi is better known (to me at least) as a writer of crime stories, and I…
Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong
Translated by Natascha Bruce Review by David Hebblethwaite Ho Sok Fong is a Malaysian writer whose short stories have won a number of awards. Lake Like a Mirror is her second collection,…
Your Duck is My Duck by Deborah Eisenberg
Review by Terence Jagger This, in spite of its slightly silly sounding title, is an interesting and slightly mysterious collection of six short stories. They are all very different, but…
Interview with Jane Badger about Pony Books
Interview by Liz Dexter Jane Badger started off as a dealer in horse and pony books, becoming known for her extremely extensive website on the subject: https://janebadgerbooks.co.uk/. She’s even written…
Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver
Review by Annabel I read and really enjoyed Paver’s first two adult novels, both ghost stories. The first, Dark Matter was located in the Arctic, which was followed by Thin Air set in the Himalayas,…