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…
Whitman Illuminated: Song of Myself by Walt Whitman, illustrated by Allen Crawford
Written by Max Dunbar Moments Before the Wind: The Illustrated Whitman Has anyone tried to illustrate Whitman before? Has anyone not felt dizzy and overloaded contemplating such a project? A…
The Old Vic by Terry Coleman
Reviewed by Harriet I do enjoy a bit of theatre history from time to time, and I must admit to a bit of a vested interest in this one. Both…
The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell
Reviewed by Harriet I suppose nobody will be reading this unless they love books, so I don’t really need to sell you on the concept of bookshops, unless of course…
Essays on the Self by Virginia Woolf
Reviewed by Simon I should hang my colours to the mast from the outset: for my money, Virginia Woolf is the greatest writer of the twentieth century. For both fiction…
Marmalade: A Bittersweet Cookbook by Sarah Randall
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton There is a not very scientific argument that claims that the third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year. Not for me…
The Restoration of Otto Laird by Nigel Packer
Written by Victoria After a long and busy life at the forefront of modern architecture, Otto Laird at 78 is more than happy to live peacefully in Switzerland with his…
Tell No Tales by Eva Dolan
Written by Victoria One of the things fiction does best is bring to life otherwise abstract debates on political or philosophical matters. There’s nothing like a story for showing us…
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
Paperback review by Susan Osborne Eagle-eyed readers already familiar with Sarah Moss’s work may recognise one of the characters in her new novel. May first made her appearance, albeit in…