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…
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…
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…
Interview by Victoria The founders of Dodo Ink are a blogger/reviewer, a novelist and a digital publishing specialist – such an intriguing combination. How did you all come together and decide…
Reviewed by Annabel The prologue of this novel set in the near future begins in some style. College student Skyler Wakefield opted to stay and work as a babysitter for…
Reviewed by Victoria Earlier this year I read the first in the Whitstable Pearl series by Julie Wassmer and enjoyed it. It featured an intriguing new sleuth, Pearl Nolan. A…
It’s not just Man Booker prize season, the publication date of Issue 7 of Shiny New Books coincides (deliberately) with National Poetry Day 2015, on and it’s the 21st Birthday of…
In a new translation by Jay Rubin Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite Shiny new publisher: Aardvark Bureau, the new Gallic Books imprint headed up by Scott Pack, formerly publisher at The…
Reviewed by Victoria Not only was this novel one of the most gripping, engrossing, heart-in-mouth novels I’ve read in 2015, it wins hands-down the most beautiful cover of the year,…
Translated by Laurie Thompson Reviewed by Gill Davies Håkan Nesser is a successful, award-winning Swedish crime writer best known for the Van Veeteren series of police novels, a few of which…
Natalie’s Diary: Fife, Scotland: February 8th Duncan asked me to sing to him this afternoon. I was struggling to keep our little dinghy on course. I had to shout for…
Reviewed by Annabel Tom Drury is the author of a trio of exquisite observational dramas following the everyday life of the inhabitants of Grouse County, Iowa, a location which epitomises…
Reviewed by Harriet My name is Justine Merrison and I do Nothing. With a capital N. Not a single thing. When I tell people I enjoy crime novels, they often…
Reviewed by Annabel Many of you will recognise Meike Ziervogel as the founder of Peirene Press; we’ve reviewed several of their novella length books in Shiny New Books (here and here for example)….
Questions by Jenny Your fascination with Madame Tussaud is obvious. What led to your decision not to set the book from her perspective, but rather from the perspective of an invented street…
Written by Lory Widmer Hess “The whole affair began so very quietly.” With the first line of her first novel, Mary Stewart already proclaimed herself a sublimely intelligent storyteller, saying…
Ingrid Wassenaar met up with David Bradley, winner of the second Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize for his essay ‘A Eulogy for Nigger’ for a conversation. Tell me your story! Well, what…
From ‘A Eulogy for Nigger’ by David Bradley DETROIT. Hundreds of onlookers cheered . . . as the National Association for the Advancement of … People put to rest a…
Translated by John Cullen Reviewed by Victoria In a bar in Oran, Algeria, a lone man sits drinking. He draws his companion – the reader – into his strange and…
Reviewed by Jenny As Kathleen Benner Duble remarks in her author’s note (always my favorite part of any historical novel), Marie (‘Manon’) Tussaud had a fascinating life. Her mother was…
As a teenager, I’d spend hours on my own wandering the stacks of Sydney’s State Library. Its vast, airy reading room mimics those of libraries I later used in London…
Although there always have been superstar authors, for everyone else, gone are the days when you could write a book and leave it to your publisher to sell it for…
Reviewed by Annabel In this review, I could just make a list of the all the great noir novels and movies and their authors that went through my mind as…
Translated from the Montenegrin by Will Firth Reviewed by Chelsea McGill Strange things are happening to our narrator, a local newspaper reporter living in the seaside town of Ulcinj, Montenegro…
