Mapp and Lucia by E.F. Benson
Reviewed by Karen Langley In his time, E.F. Benson was a prolific writer of many different types of fiction, but nowadays he is best remember for his much-loved stories about…
Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale by Marina Warner
Reviewed by Helen Parry Is it fair to claim that Marina Warner is the reigning British queen of fairy tales? I believe so. Her best-known book on the subject, From the…
The Art of Neil Gaiman by Hayley Campbell
Reviewed by Jodie Robson I think I may have have mentioned before that I’m a fan of Neil Gaiman’s writing. A pretty unabashed fan, actually, a bit like Hayley Campbell,…
An Interview with Barbara Nadel
SNB: By way of introduction would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself? Barbara: I was born and brought up in the east end of London. Back then, in…
Entry Island by Peter May
Reviewed by Harriet Devine I’d never read anything by Peter May when this book was sent me for review. The first thing that struck me was that Peter May must…
Love Insurance by Earl Derr Biggers
Reviewed by Simon Thomas It’s fun occasionally to read a book that doesn’t take itself remotely seriously. And it would be impossible for Love Insurance (1914) by Earl Derr Biggers to take…
Poisoned Ground by Barbara Nadel
Reviewed by Danielle Simpson In PI Lee Arnold and his assistant Mumtaz Hakim Barbara Nadel has created two of the most unusual and intriguing characters to populate a crime novel…
Forty-One False Starts by Janet Malcom
Review by Victoria Best I’ve been a huge fan of Janet Malcolm since reading her brilliant biography of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, The Silent Woman. What she could do –…
The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson
Reviewed by Ann Little Dorrit has always been amongst my favourite Dickens’ novels and so I approached Antonia Hodgson’s first novel, The Devil in the Marshalsea, with a mixture of caution and anticipation. I didn’t…
Fall From Grace by Tim Weaver
Reviewed by Harriet Devine When I started reading Fall From Grace, I hadn’t realised it was part of a series – the fifth part, to be exact. This is always risky…
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
Reviewed by Harriet Devine Phew! Well, the term unputdownable is often bandied around – I’ve done some bandying myself – but there were times when Sarah Waters’ latest novel actually…
Hotel Alpha Stories: 80 Alpha Bar, 2004 by Mark Watson
Mark Watson’s project, Hotel Alpha, the novel of which we review in our fiction section here, is more than just a book. The Hotel Alpha website had 100 short stories to read, one…
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
Review by Annabel I always find accounts of lives worked in medicine absolutely fascinating, especially those of surgeons, who live on the cutting edge (sorry!) of medical science. It takes…
Spotlight on Publishing: Buried River Press
1. Can you tell us a little bit about how the imprint was started? We launched Buried River Press in spring of this year, and have published seven titles to…
Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy by Mary Renault
Reviewed by Jenny. Mary Renault has a genius for the past. It’s in all her historical books: the stony, fated world of the Greeks, rushed forward to our softer and…
Facial Justice by LP Hartley
Reviewed by Harriet Devine The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. So, famously, wrote LP Hartley at the beginning of his most famous novel, The Go Between. But what…
Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh by John Lahr
Reviewed by Max Dunbar Perfect Tenn: A Life of Tennessee Williams An inconvenience of biography is that before the interesting stuff is revealed, one first has to wade through chapter…
The Gardens at Brantwood: Evolution of John Ruskin’s Lakeland Paradise by David Ingram
Reviewed by Barb Scharf. “It comes as something of a surprise to most people to consider Ruskin the Gardener. Ruskin has been much written about as an art critic and…
Hotel Alpha by Mark Watson
Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite A hotel is a confluence of stories: a mixture of public and private space; a places where chance encounters are routine; somewhere that plays host to…
Help for the Haunted by John Searles
Reviewed by Victoria Best. Lying in bed, 14-year-old Sylvie Mason hears a telephone call summoning her parents out into the middle of a snowy Baltimore night. This isn’t unusual; her…
Winter Siege by Ariana Franklin and Samantha Norman
Reviewed by Harriet I had not heard of Ariana Franklin until a few months ago, when I was given her Mistress of the Art of Death as an early birthday present. Seeing…
The Buddha’s Return by Gaito Gazdanov
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley Following the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, many of that country’s beleaguered citizens escaped abroad, setting up émigré communities in cities…
Flying Shoes by Lisa Howorth
Reviewed by Victoria Best What do they do to writers down in Mississippi? Is there a school, I wonder, where prospective writers go in order to be marinaded in a bath of…
First Time Solo by Iain Maloney
Reviewed by Andrew Blackman Pick up a book set in World War Two, and you have certain expectations. These expectations are largely frustrated by First Time Solo, and that’s a good…