The Second Rider by Alex Beer
Translated by Tim Mohr Review by Gill Davies The Second Rider is the first novel in a projected new series by the Austrian writer, Alex Beer. It is set in…
Translated by Tim Mohr Review by Gill Davies The Second Rider is the first novel in a projected new series by the Austrian writer, Alex Beer. It is set in…
Reviewed by Annabel Eric Idle is perhaps the most elusive of the Pythons. He’s the one who wrote on his own, the one whose characters are full of banter, ‘Nudge…
Review by Anna Hollingsworth Hippie is the newest addition to Coelho’s bibliography, but to say that it is something new from Coelho would be lying. Coelho’s previous autobiographical novels are…
Reviewed by Harriet This attractive and informative volume does exactly what the title promises. It’s divided into ten sections: Science and Discovery; Travel and Tourism; Homes and Gardens; Sport and…
Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2015 I wrote a review for Shiny of Jonathan Croall’s Performing King Lear, a wonderfully well-researched survey of performances of this great and challenging play….
Translated by Susan Causey, Translation editor Vera Tsareva-Brauner Review by Karen Langley Recent years have seen a large number of works by Russian authors newly translated into the English language;…
Reviewed by Harriet Have you ever wondered how the children of a witch and a vampire might turn out? Well, wonder no longer as you can now see them in…
Review by Liz Dexter Williams opens this wonderful, absorbing book with a big statement about how the Vikings are not afforded the same respect as, say, the Romans, having become…
Review by Julie Barham It is never easy to review a collection of short stories, especially one by such a diverse selection of authors as this one. It contains stories…
Reviewed by David Harris Roberts seems to have been very busy lately so I’m glad he managed to include a return to the world of The Real-Town Murders, one of my favourite books…
By Karen Langley “The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him.” (Anais Nin) The banning of books is an emotive topic; so much of the…
Reviewed by Annabel Having been Man Booker shortlisted in 2011 for her debut novel, Half Blood Blues, set in Berlin during WWII and fifty years later, Edugyan’s second novel, The…
Review by Laura Tisdall Having read every novel that Sarah Moss has written (plus most of her non-fiction) I was eagerly anticipating Ghost Wall. It didn’t disappoint, although its brevity…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster It started with a misreading of some nineteenth-century handwriting. In 2013 Nell Stevens began a PhD at King’s College, London. Captivated by the energy and wit…
Reviewed by Annabel In his 2013 book Stuff Matters which I reviewed for Shiny here, materials science professor Miodownik took us on a tour around some of the most important…
Review by Anna Hollingsworth To say that the statistics are grim is a blatant understatement. One woman in five will experience sexual violence, but very few cases end up in…
Reviewed by Harriet Born in Cardiff in 1939, Peter Gill is a distinguished theatre director and playwright. But he started his career as an actor in the early 1960s, working…
Reviewed by Alice Farrant The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker is the retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of Briseis (Brih-SAY-iss), once Queen of Lyrnessus and then…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster When I saw him introduce The Immeasurable World as part of the Faber Spring Party, William Atkins characterised it as being in “the old-fashioned travel writing…
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies The title of Seth Greenland’s book harks back to William Dean Howells’ 1889 New York novel of business and politics A Hazard of New Fortunes. The…
Reviewed by Alice Farrant There are books you enjoy and then there are the books that consume you. Authors whose work brands you, generating literary musing that lasts well beyond…
Review by Annabel Given that I hadn’t looked at where this novel was set, it was a perfect, if somewhat ironic, fit to take on holiday to Somerset with me….
Reviewed by David Harris Ray was first introduced – as detective – in Made to Kill (reviewed here), where, apart from cracking the case, he discovered his true nature as a killer. The…
Annabel asked Myriad Editions’ Publishing Director Candida Lacey some questions… Annabel: Your company website has an intriguing strapline, ‘Publishers of fiction, graphic books and atlases’. Tell us a little about Myriad…