Performing Hamlet by Jonathan Croall
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….
Death of the Vazir-Mukhtar by Yuri Tynianov
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;…
Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness
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…
Viking Britain: A History by Thomas Williams
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…
I Am Heathcliff – Stories Inspired by Wuthering Heights, curated by Kate Mosse
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…
By the Pricking of Her Thumb by Adam Roberts
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…
Banned Books Week – The Russians
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…
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
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…
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
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…
Mrs Gaskell & Me: Two Women, Two Love Stories, Two Centuries Apart By Nell Stevens
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…
Liquid by Mark Miodownik
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…
On Rape by Germaine Greer
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…
Apprenticeship by Peter Gill
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…
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
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…
The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places by William Atkins
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…
The Hazards of Good Fortune by Seth Greenland
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…
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
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…
Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale
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….
I Only Killed Him Once by Adam Christopher
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…
Spotlight on Publishers: Myriad Editions
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…
The King’s Witch by Tracy Borman
Reviewed by Julie Barham This is the debut novel written by Tracy Borman, who is a popular historian and Curator of Historic Royal Palaces. The research is therefore impeccable, the…
The Town by Shaun Prescott
Reviewed by Harriet This is how things are going to be from now on. This is how they’re going to stay. History can end, you know. It doesn’t have to…
Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
Review by Annabel Becky Chambers’ third novel is set in the same galactic milieu as her first two. It can be read as a standalone and marks her out as…
Learning to Die by Thomas Maloney
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Three decades of life promise a quarter-life crisis: your 20s are on their way into your 30s, you’re forced to reflect and look back, and, too…