Unicorn: The Poetry of Angela Carter, with an Essay by Rosemary Hill
Reviewed by Harriet I was a slow starter where Angela Carter was concerned. I was given what I now think of as her masterpiece, Nights at the Circus, sometime in the…
His Monkey Wife by John Collier
Reviewed by Simon When I told people that I was writing about bestiality during my DPhil, they were a little surprised that it got a look-in amongst the charming middlebrow…
Death on the Riviera by John Bude
Reviewed by Simon I’ve got all the John Bude reprints that have appeared in the British Library Crime Classics series, and have given several to other people, but Death on the…
Spotlight on Publishers: Dean Street Press
Q & A with Rupert Heath Will you tell me a little about the genesis of Dean Street Press? What prompted you to start the business? I’ve spent the past fifteen…
Cut Me In by Ed McBain
Reviewed by Annabel Ed McBain (aka Evan Hunter, although that wasn’t his original name either) was a prolific author, writing over eighty novels. These included over fifty ‘87th Precinct’ books; with…
Reading Manchester
By Rob Spence After the recent Budget, the Treasury published a document outlining the government’s plans for regional spending. In among the references to particular cities and regions was a…
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Reviewed by Simon Slightly Foxed Editions – and I never tire of saying how beautiful they are – offer two different, wonderful things to the world. Either they are an…
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Reviewed by Annabel The anticipation of re-reading a book first read and enjoyed as a child always gives me a feeling of mild discomfort. Can it work on an adult…
The Prison Book Club by Ann Walmsley
Reviewed by Victoria The Prison Book Club was one of those books that I had high hopes for, being mildly fascinated by what goes on in your average book club, let…
The Last of the Bowmans by J. Paul Henderson
Reviewed by Annabel Do you remember how the wonderful TV series Six Feet Under began? In the opening scene, one of the key characters, Nathaniel Fisher Sr., is run over by a…
The Roar of Morning by Tip Marugg
Translated by Paul Vincent Reviewed by Karen Langley Silvio Alberto ‘Tip’ Marugg is an author new to me, and one who has quite a small body of work. Of Dutch-Antillean…
The Making of the Modern Refugee by Peter Gatrell
Reviewed by Terence Jagger ‘Refugees have only been allowed a walk-on part in most histories of the twentieth century, and even then as subjects of external intervention rather than as…
The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton
Paperback review by Judith Wilson This book arrived with impeccable timing: I was tired of unseasonably warm UK temperatures and longing for a December frost. From its snowy jacket design…
The Last of the Bowmans and Black Humour by J Paul Henderson
As he stops off at Shiny New Books on his book tour, we asked J Paul Henderson, author of The Last of the Bowmans (reviewed here), to explore where the black humour comes from…
The Little Red Chairs by Edna O’Brien
Reviewed by Karen Heenan-Davies When Edna O’Brien released her memoir Country Girl in 2012, there was intense speculation that this would be her swansong. She is after all in her eighties. But those pundits…
The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo
Translated by Isabelle Kaufeler Reviewed by Marina Sofia The Baztan valley in the Pyrenees in the north-east of Spain is misty, rainy and remote. Immersed in Basque traditions and superstitions,…
Dry Season by Gabriela Babnik
Translated by Rawley Grau Reviewed by Chelsea McGill Ana, a 62-year-old graphic designer from Slovenia, has run away to a completely foreign place – Burkina Faso. There she meets Ismael,…
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
Reviewed by Linda Boa This slim collection of a dozen stories by American novelist and short story writer Helen Ellis is something of a wee gem. With stories ranging from…
What Reading Makes of Us – The Power of Stories to Shape our Realities: An Essay.
By Mark Thornton (This is an adaptation of a talk I gave to sixth formers at Abingdon School last year.) This is my tenth year of being an independent bookseller –…
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe & Dracula by Bram Stoker
Reviewed by Harriet I suspect that neither of these two great classics has ever been out of print since their respective first appearances in 1719 and 1897, and a quick…
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This book, which won the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, goes into the history of autism, research on autism and related syndromes over the years…
Brooklyn: From Book to Film
By Diana Cheng When Alex Garland was writing the screenplay for Never Let Me Go, the book author Kazuo Ishiguro told him: ‘Your only duty is to write a really good…
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
Paperback review by Judith Wilson I read Brooklyn when it was originally published by Viking in 2009; it was the first novel I’d encountered by Irish-born Colm Tóibín, and I’ve since devoured The…
In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward
Paperback review by Gill Davies This is Sarah Ward’s first novel. She is a very experienced reader of the genre – she blogs at Crimepieces and reviews and judges Scandinavian crime writing. It…