Reading Diversity
By Marilyn Dell Brady For the past three years, I have been reading globally and diversely, reading books written by people of color. The result has been exciting. By definition, people of…
Gray Mountain by John Grisham
Reviewed by Harriet I first discovered the novels of John Grisham over a decade ago, and had a terrific splurge, which I remember enjoying tremendously. Then things moved on and…
Getting Colder by Amanda Coe
Review by Judith Wilson I had read and been intrigued by Amanda Coe’s strong debut novel, What They Do in the Dark (Virago, 2011), so I couldn’t wait to lay my hands…
The Fires of Autumn by Irène Némirovsky
Translated by Sandra Smith Reviewed by Harriet The Fires of Autumn, first published in France in 1957, is the most recent of Irène Némirovsky’s novels to be translated into English….
Michelle Bailat-Jones on writing Fog Island Mountains
My novel Fog Island Mountains is about a mixed-culture family living in southern Japan. The novel centers on the father’s unexpected diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and his wife’s flight from and denial…
Fog Island Mountains by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Reviewed by Rebecca Hussey Full disclosure: I’ve been reading Michelle Bailat-Jones’s blog for many years now, we have been “internet friends” for most of that time, and I wrote book…
The Two Hotel Francforts by David Leavitt
Written by Victoria It’s the summer of 1940 and Lisbon in Portugal is bursting at the seams with people desperate to leave mainland Europe and the march of the Nazis….
Jigsaw Man by Elena Forbes
Reviewed by Kathleen Holly Marsh Jigsaw Man is a typical crime novel following two murder investigations set in and around London in the present day. Detective Inspector Mark Tartaglia is the…
A Price to Pay by Alex Capus
Translated by John Brownjohn Reviewed by Annabel Alex Capus is a French-Swiss novelist who writes in German. He was born in France and now lives in Switzerland. He has written…
Some Luck by Jane Smiley
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Jane Smiley’s thirteenth novel returns to the winning formula of her 1991 Pulitzer Prize winner, A Thousand Acres, which transplanted King Lear to an Iowan farm. Some Luck is the first…
Lamentation by C.J. Sansom
Reviewed by Adèle Geras Lamentation is the sixth novel in a series which began in 2003 with Dissolution and which has continued through Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, and Heartstone. As a series, it…
Amnesia by Peter Carey
Review by Victoria I first read Peter Carey in 1988, when Oscar and Lucinda won the Booker Prize. I wasn’t sure I could say I liked him exactly, but I knew I…
Armchair Nation by Joe Moran
Reviewed by Annabel. I’m a big fan of television having been an enthusiastic watcher for all of my life, from The Woodentops to Blue Peter as a young child, The…
Germany – Memories of a Nation by Neil MacGregor
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is a splendid book, a real celebration of Germany’s history, and its great contributions to our liberal western civilisation (as well as frank examinations of…
Ezra Pound: Poet – The Epic Years by A. David Moody
Reviewed by Rob Spence I’ve been teaching Modernism in higher education for over two decades now, and have therefore spent quite a lot of time reading and discussing the work…
Chinaski by Frances Vick
Reviewed by Annabel. A novel about a British Rock Band in the 1990s with a grainy image of a Marshall amplifier on its front cover is bound to grab the…
I Was Here by Gayle Forman (YA)
Reviewed by Annabel When I read Gayle Forman’s debut novel If I Stay back in 2009, the juggernaut that is today’s YA book industry was in its relative infancy. Being in my…
Good Girls Don’t Die by Isabelle Grey
Reviewed by Beth Townsend Good Girls Don’t Die is the first in a new crime series written by Isabelle Grey, known for her previous psychological thrillers Out of Sight and Bad Mother. Good Girls Don’t…
Nairn’s London by Ian Nairn
Reviewed by Karen Langley Ian Nairn was a regular TV presence in the 1960s and 1970s, but faded out of view towards the end of his life. Born in 1930,…
Notes on a Cuff by Mikhail Bulgakov
Translated by Roger Cockrell Reviewed by Karen Langley When Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov’s magnum opus The Master and Margarita was finally published, decades after his death, it took the literary world by…
Dear Reader by Paul Fournel
Translated by David Bellos Reviewed by Karen Langley One of the continual debates nowadays amongst readers is the notion of paper versus e-reader. So it’s a delight to come across…
Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat
Review by Claire Hayes There’s an enchanted sense of shared humanity about Edwidge Danticat’s third adult novel Claire of the Sea Light. As a freak wave off the coast of the Haitian…
2015 Books into Films
Written by Diana Cheng By now, you probably have seen some of the movie adaptations listed in the previous BookBuzz, like Gone Girl, Unbroken, and The Imitation Game. Here, to kick off 2015, we…
Duveen by S.N. Behrman
Reviewed by Simon A good book review – according to the unwritten rules agreed by the Shiny New Books editors – should be about the book, not simply an essay…