Hollywood: The Oral History by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson
Reviewed by Harriet Seven hundred and fifty pages sounds like a lot until you realise this book covers the entire history of Hollywood from its very beginnings to almost the…
Reviewed by Harriet Seven hundred and fifty pages sounds like a lot until you realise this book covers the entire history of Hollywood from its very beginnings to almost the…
Review by Helen Parry Over the last thirty years, the genre of fantasy has become more ‘respectable’. Although it has never been simply an excuse for plodding, Lord-of-the-Rings, Sword-and-Sorcery knock-offs,…
Compiled by Annabel In its ninth year, Shiny New Books passed the 2000 mark in published posts. We thought it would be fun to go back through our archives to…
Review by Lory Widmer Hess I wouldn’t normally expect much of a book created as the novelization of a TV series, but in this case, you know—Neil Gaiman. His first…
Review by Max Dunbar The Cathedral ‘I am not Ukrainian and I questioned whether it was my place to tell this story,’ Kalani Pickhart writes in the foreword to I Will…
Reviewed by Annabel This super hardback book from Bodleian Library Publishing has ‘Christmas gift for the cat lover in your life’ written all over it. Who would have thought that…
Reviewed by Harriet ‘These stories are to fortify you over the Christmas period’, says the blurb on the back of this new collection from the British Library Women Writers Series….
Reviewed by Annabel Sadly, I missed seeing Alan Rickman in Les Liaisons Dangereuses by a few weeks; Greg Hicks had recently taken over the role of the Vicomte de Valmont…
Reviewed by Harriet Peter Gill’s most recent play finished a relatively short run at the Jermyn Street Theatre on 12 November. I would have loved to go and see it,…
Compiled by Annabel In its ninth year, Shiny New Books has passed the 2000 mark in published posts. We thought it would be good to go back through our archives…
Reviewed by Harriet ‘There was evil in the air of London’, thinks Detective Inspector Frobisher, recently put in charge of Bow Street Police Station. A Devon man, often homesick for…
Review by Annabel The publicist’s pitch of ‘Bladerunner meets John Le Carré’ was totally irresistible. While I’m not sure that the former is particularly applicable to this novel, Le Carré…
Reviewed by Harriet Dust raised by the impact falls slowly on the bodies. The thickest particles are struck by a shaft of light, and amid the sparkling dust, a St…
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies ‘And then at last I began to realise how terrible a thing it was, the dream that you make come true.’ confesses the eponymous heroine of…
Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess In our upside-down world of reversed values, where what is most lasting and important is given the least amount of attention, while superficial, transitory things…
Reviewed by Harriet First published in 1928, War Among Ladies is the latest offering from the British Library Women Writers series. I’ve read all of them, and reviewed almost all,…
Reviewed by Harriet It’s less than a year since I wrote my review of Elizabeth Strout’s Booker shortlisted Oh William! here on Shiny. It was the third of her books…
Review by Annabel It took mere seconds to say yes please to a review copy of this book – I read the words ‘1962’ and ‘physics’ on the publicity blurb…
Reviewed by Harriet I was initially quite surprised to discover, early on in the latest and biggest novel about the exploits of private investigators Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, that…
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long What is a courtier? According to dictionaries I have checked it seems there are two definitions: A person who is often in attendance at the court of…
Reviewed by Harriet I came to The Marriage Portrait primed, in a sense, as I was already familiar with the story of the marriage between Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara and…
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long Bridget Keenan worked as an editor on Nova magazine, and on the newspapers The Observer and The Sunday Times. I remember reading her pieces and thinking that…
Review by Karen Langley George Orwell is still regarded as one of the 20th Century’s towering literary figures. Best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four, he…
Review by Liz Dexter Aliya Whiteley writes about the natural world in essays and fiction, grew up in North Devon and now lives in West Sussex, both rural areas replete…