Five Fascinating Facts about … Margaret Atwood
By Shoshi Ish-Horowicz 1. She had an unconventional childhood with her family, spending every spring and summer in the northern Canadian wilderness; Atwood didn’t start full time school until the…
Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell
Reviewed by David Harris I’d been eagerly waiting for this book. Cornell has recently published two volumes in an urban fantasy series, The Shadow Police, set among the supernatural threats of…
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
Reviewed by Shoshi Ish-Horowicz To put this review into context, I’m a huge Margaret Atwood fan. I haven’t read everything she’s written (fifteen novels, eight collections of short stories, not…
The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard
Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell This may have been the first novel I’ve read by Franco-Vietnamese SF&F author Aliette de Bodard, but it certainly won’t be the last. She has already…
The Killing Kind by Chris Holm
Reviewed by David Harris At first sight, this book was surprisingly different from the previous books of Holm’s that I had read: his Collector series was a noir-tinged fantasy trilogy featuring an operative who…
Reading Liverpool
Compiled by Beth Townsend Novels set in places I recognise are a special kind of thing. There is nothing I enjoy more than reading about a place and going, hang…
Friday on my Mind by Nicci French
Reviewed by Harriet The crime-writing couple known as Nicci French have had an amazingly productive and successful career. Having published no less than 11 brilliantly successful standalone psychological thrillers between…
Ezra Pound: Poet, Volume III by A. David Moody
Reviewed by Rob Spence A. David Moody’s monumental biography of Ezra Pound reaches its conclusion with this third and final volume. Having taken the story of Pound’s increasingly erratic life…
Upcoming Books to Films
By Diana Cheng Autumn ushers in major film festivals, a springboard to the Awards Season. The following is a list of new movie adaptations, a few of which have just…
The Autobiography of James T. Kirk edited by David A. Goodman
Reviewed by Annabel I still have a huge affection for Star Trek in all its incarnations and, as time goes on, although Jean-Luc Picard is the man for me, I prefer the…
Interview with Pushkin Vertigo series cover designer Jamie Keenan
Questions by Victoria I’ve been looking at book covers you’ve designed and it’s an incredibly impressive range. How did you start working with books – was that always a goal…
The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janet Galloway
Reviewed by Julie Barham If a picture of mind numbing grief was to be fictionalised, this is the novel to read. This is a reprint in the Scottish Classic Vintage…
Sweet Caress by William Boyd
Reviewed by Harriet I’ve read all William Boyd’s novels, and have liked most of them enormously. Over the years he’s played with a number of different genres, including spy stories,…
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This was an interesting read, and there have been times when it would have been an act of bravery to read it in Zimbabwe, where it…
An Interview with Joanne Limburg
By Victoria What I absolutely loved about A Want of Kindness was the voice you’ve managed to create. It was so brilliantly of the 17th century without ever losing clarity or…
A Want of Kindness by Joanne Limburg
Reviewed by Victoria Finally! A historical novelist whose wit and insight and glorious prose might threaten to topple Hilary Mantel from her throne. If you are a reader who, like…
Thirteen Guests by J Jefferson Farjeon
Reviewed by Harriet Every station has its special voice. Some are of grit. Some are of sand. Some are of milk cans. Some are of rock muffled by tunnel smoke….
Renishaw Hall: The Story of the Sitwells by Desmond Seward
Reviewed by Ali Hope I read very few non-fiction books these days, but this was a book that ticked a number of boxes for me. I do like books about…
The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Stories, by Joan Aiken
Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess For over sixty years – starting about age sixteen and continuing right up until her death in 2004 – storyteller extraordinaire Joan Aiken wrote tales…
Worktown by David Hall
Reviewed by Harriet The Astonishing Story of the Project that Launched Mass-Observation So screams the cover of this book. I’m always a bit wary of cover blurbs, and I must…
Moving by Jenny Eclair
Reviewed by Laura Marriott Moving is the latest literary offering from Jenny Eclair. It is the fourth novel from the comedian, who has published three other successful novels; Camberwell Beauty, Having a Lovely…
The 101 Greatest Plays from Antiquity to the Present, by Michael Billington
Reviewed by Harriet As the longest-serving British theatre critic, a biographer, and a teacher and lecturer at several world-class universities, Michael Billington has some claim to being able to select…
Spotlight on Young Adult Fiction – Autumn 2015
By Memory Scarlett and Jenny Young adult fiction seems unstoppable these days, with its ever-increasing bookshop floor space and arbitrary, balkanized genre divisions. It’s clear that good YA fiction is…
Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson
Reviewed by Simon This is the third Shiny New Books issue in which I’ve had the privilege of writing about Shirley Jackson’s works – and, indeed, I’ve bolstered out those…