Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Paperback review by Naomi Eileen might ‘look like a girl you’d expect to see on a city bus, reading some clothbound book from the library about plants or geography’ but if…
Paperback review by Naomi Eileen might ‘look like a girl you’d expect to see on a city bus, reading some clothbound book from the library about plants or geography’ but if…
Reviewed by Harriet Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid…
Reviewed by Annabel When the world woke up on January 10th to hear that David Bowie had died just two days after Blackstar was released, we all mourned. I still…
Q & A with Edwin Frank, Editorial Director at NYRB The Eds at Shiny are all great fans of NYRB books. Can you tell us a little about the genesis…
Translated by Basil Creighton / revised by Margot Bettauer Dembo Reviewed by Karen Langley Being known as the author of one successful book can be as much of a curse…
Reviewed by Helen Parry ‘I think people are made of the places not only where they’ve been raised, but that they’ve loved; I think environments inhabit us […] By understanding…
Written by Ann Kennedy Smith A Quiet Life by Natasha Walter (Borough Press, 2016), Mrs Engels by Gavin McCrea (Scribe, 2016) I spend a lot of my time reading other people’s private letters…
Translated by Ros Schwartz & Lulu Norman Reviewed by Alice Farrant About My Mother is the story of a Lalla Fatma, written down by her son Tahar as she lays…
Translated by Don Bartlett Reviewed by Gill Davies Where Roses Never Die is my first Gunnar Staalesen novel. Staalesen is Norwegian and he has been successfully writing crime fiction since 1977,…
Reviewed by David Harris Alastair Reynolds has a reputation as a prolific writer of SF and made waves a few years ago when he signed a ten book deal with…
Reviewed by Simon There have been quite a few reprints, in recent years, from the interwar period and thereabouts. We are familiar with Golden Age detective fiction coming back into…
Reviewed by Harriet The rain wept on him from the eyes of the trees. The winter afternoon waned to its close. He withdrew into himself, stifling thought, powerless to guide…
Reviewed by Susan Osborne Female friendship is a frequent theme in fiction, or at least what’s often dubbed as ‘women’s fiction’. It can be more than a little idealised but…
Translated and annotated by David Ball Review by Terence Jagger This is a sombre book, the diary of a thoughtful but determined man – a teacher and writer who, 50…
By Victoria Best The press release for Sarah Waters’ new novel, The Paying Guests, describes it as ‘the most anticipated book of 2014’ and for once, this feels more like fact…
Samantha was interviewed by Harriet H: Hi Samantha – thanks for agreeing to answer some questions. I very much enjoyed Winter Siege, and wondered if you could say something about the…
Reviewed by Rob Spence We seem to have a glut of popular historians at the moment. Simon Schama, Tom Holland, Peter Frankopan, Lara Feigel, Mary Beard are among the names…
Translated by Jane Aitken and Emily Boyce Reviewed by Annabel I experienced the sheer joy of reading French author Antoine Laurain earlier this summer when I finally read his first…
Reviewed by Harriet I live in rural France, and visit Paris from time to time, generally rather briefly. I’m beginning to get the hang of the city and to appreciate…
Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies Erik Storey’s début novel, which bids to inaugurate a series, comes garlanded with approving quotes from established authors Lee Child and Jeffrey Deaver and has been…
By Diana Cheng I just came back home from the Toronto International Film Festival. Of the eight features I had watched, there are two that stirred up some ripples in…
Reviewed by Harriet I saw the ships in the water and the lights of the stars in the water and the reflections under the bridges. The pubs were about to…
Review by Peter Hobson Subtitled “Making Sense of the Twentieth Century”, Higgs’ book takes fifteen of what he (and I think many people) consider to be seminal concepts, paradigm shifts…
Reviewed by Annabel Snow is the latest addition to small indie publisher Little Toller’s series of ‘monographs’. These smart little hardbacks are dedicated to writing ‘attuned to the natural world,’…