A Moment for the Short Story
By David Hebblethwaite Short stories are in our bones. They are often the first fiction we read or hear: fairy tales, bedtime stories – and at school (for example), they…
The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness
Reviewed by Harriet Devine The Book of Life is indeed a mighty tome, as Dan Brown would say. I read it with great delight, but was seriously wondering all the time…
The Martian by Andy Weir
Paperback Review by Dan L. The Martian by Andy Weir took the Sci-Fi reading populace by storm with the release of the hardback. So much so, that Ridley Scott decided he…
Spotlight on Publishers: Unbound
Is crowd-funding the future of publishing? Annabel talks to Unbound… Before we get into our chat fully, could you explain briefly for those readers who don’t know you, how Unbound…
Five Fascinating Facts about… Frances Hodgson Burnett
Compiled by Harriet Devine 1. Frances was born near Manchester, in England. Her father was a successful ironmonger, but her family fell on hard times after his death when she…
Shiny New Author: Questions for Angus Watson
In the first of a new series in which we interview debut authors, Victoria talked to Angus Watson, author of Age of Iron. V: When did you first realise you wanted…
Age of Iron by Angus Watson
Reviewed by Kathleen Holly Marsh Age of Iron by Angus Watson is the first book in a trilogy giving an entertaining but gripping account of what happened when Julius Caesar tried…
Stay Up With Me by Tom Barbash
Reviewed by Alice Farrant Stay Up With Me by Tom Barbash is a collection of short stories set in New York City. Each explores a disconnection between parents and children, lovers or…
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell Back in March, I went to hear McEwan talk at the Oxford Literary Festival. He read a couple of passages from the final draft of his…
Mãn by Kim Thuy
Translated by Sheila Frischman Reviewed by Susan Osborne This slim, very beautiful novel is a love story, a work of aching nostalgia and a glorious celebration of language. Its gorgeous,…
Jen Campbell talks about Bookshops…
“I like bookshops,” a little girl once said to me in the middle of our own bookshop – an organised chaos of antiquarian children’s books in north London. “I like…
A Lady of Quality by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long Over the last ten years or so I have tracked down and read all of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s adult writing. I had been totally unaware that…
An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankel
Translated by Laurie Thompson Reviewed by Harriet Devine This book is a bit of a curiosity. When it arrived and I realised what it was, I wondered if it was…
Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe
Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell A few years ago there was a reality show series on children’s telly in the UK called Project Parent, in which kids from single parent families…
Herbaceous by Paul Evans
Reviewed by Barb Scharf HERBACEOUS adj resembling or having the nature of herbs (any non-woody seed-bearing plant which dies down to the ground after flowering but whose roots etc. survive);…
The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson
Written by Liam Roberts After an engrossing and thrilling first chapter, readers may expect a zipping crime novel full of action and intrigue, which The Spring of Kasper Meier does have in…
An Interview with Tom Barbash
Tell us about your apprenticeship in art – what experiences have made you the writer you are today? My first real job after college was as a reporter in a…
A Strange Business: Making Art and Money in Nineteenth-Century Britain by James Hamilton
Reviewed by Frances Ambler Mention art and money together and the chances are it’ll conjure up an image of some Saatchi-esque super dealer or the likes of Damien Hirst, artists…
The Head of the Saint by Socorro Acioli
Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn Reviewed by Annabel In my experience, there aren’t many novels for children and young adults around in English translation, although I was pleased…
How to be Both by Ali Smith
Reviewed by Harriet Devine I’m not one of those people who rush out and buy all the Booker longlisted books on principle, or even the shortlisted ones, or even the…
The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson, ed. Tom Jaine
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton My best friend and I met through books; she was running a discount bookshop that I used to shop in, after a while she gave me…
The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill
Reviewed by Harriet Let me say at once that I absolutely loved this book. I’ve read all the previous seven of Susan Hill’s Simon Serrailler series with pleasure, though I…
Upcoming Books into Films: Autumn 2014
By Diana Cheng The harvest of films releasing in the latter part of the year for me is the compensation for fallen leaves and chilly weather. Indeed, movies coming out…
Behind The Sea Garden by Deborah Lawrenson
The heroine of the Resistance may have been rising ninety, but she was still wearing racy red shoes. “Not so many years,” she said, “but a time that marked us…