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…
The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén Forgiveness is a word like tiger–there’s footage of it and verifiably it exists but few of us have seen it close and wild or known it…
Murder of a Lady by Anthony Wynne
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I do love the British Library Crime Classics series. It feels like it goes from strength to strength, or maybe it’s that this past year’s offerings…
Josephine Tey: A Life by Jennifer Morag Henderson
Reviewed by Harriet I can’t tell you how excited I was when I heard there was finally going to be a proper biography of the great crime writer Josephine Tey,…
Dublin Seven by Frankie Gaffney
Reviewed by Laura Marriott On a small crossroads near the bottom of Manor Street, one of the main through ways in Dublin 7, there is a rundown, abandoned pub called…
Coffin Road by Peter May
Reviewed by Linda Boa If you had killed someone you would remember. Wouldn’t you? In his latest novel, which it goes without saying will be absolutely huge, his legion of fans…
Numero Zero by Umberto Eco
Translated by Richard Dixon Reviewed by Paul Fishman For a short novel, Numero Zero is amazingly leisurely and discursive. It’s like an Arabian Nights for conspiracy theorists, historians of the late 20th century and…
The Long Room by Francesca Kay
Reviewed by Harriet A gripping story of obsession and spies set in eighties London. So says the blurb on the back of this truly excellent novel. But this is no…
Gratitude by Oliver Sacks
Reviewed by Simon I’ve had the privilege of reviewing three different books by Oliver Sacks for Shiny New Books now, but this is the first since his sad death last year….