Don’t Point That Thing At Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli
Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell Don’t Point That Thing At Me was originally published in 1972, and is the first in a trilogy of novels featuring The Hon. Charlie Mortdecai; a fourth…
Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell Don’t Point That Thing At Me was originally published in 1972, and is the first in a trilogy of novels featuring The Hon. Charlie Mortdecai; a fourth…
Reviewed by Terence Jagger When I first heard of an English cricket tour to Germany in 1937, I assumed it was essentially subversive – that the tour would have been…
Reviewed by Peter Hobson The name John Gribbin will be familiar to many readers with an interest in understanding the mysterious quantum world as he is well known for books…
Questions by Simon Thomas Simon: I love Virginia Woolf so much that I felt nervous about reading Virginia Woolf in Manhattan, but I was really, really impressed. Your love of her…
Reviewed by Simon Thomas I was very nervous about reading Virginia Woolf in Manhattan. I am an enormous Woolf fan, and was a bit scared about the crimes that might be…
Translated and with commentary by Roger Clarke Reviewed by Karen Langley Alexander Pushkin is, of course, Russia’s national poet. Tragically killed in a duel in 1837, his influence still permeates…
Reviewed by Ann Darnton Late last year I stumbled across London Falling, the first novel in Paul Cornell’s series of what might loosely – very loosely – be called police procedurals….
Written by Karen Langley 1. His matrilineal great grandfather was a Black African Page brought over to Russia as a slave. Abram Petrovich Gannibal (1696–1781) was kidnapped and taken to Russia…
Translated from the Catalan by Julie Wark Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell This is the story of Gabriel Delacruz, orphan, international furniture remover, lover and father to four sons. Four boys –…
Reviewed by Lizzy Siddal It is a piece of weakness and folly merely to value things because of the distance from the place where we are born: thus men have…
Review by Harriet Have you ever had the experience of finishing a book and feeling as if you will never find another one that remotely measures up? That’s how I…
Reviewed by Claire/The Captive Reader When I started blogging in early 2010, I had never heard of Angela Thirkell. Then, slowly, I started hearing whispers. A casual reference here and…
Translated by Clarissa Botsford Reviewed by Susan Osborne Reading fiction in translation offers us a glimpse into different worlds, cultures that we can never experience ourselves no matter how sophisticated modern…
Reviewed by Harriet Devine People who know and love Nicci French will know at once that this is the fourth outing into the world of Frieda Klein, that troubled, insomniac…
Reviewed by Andrew Blackman Follow your dreams. It’s a phrase beloved of self-help authors and motivational speakers, but what if you can only follow your dreams by hurting those closest…
Reviewed by Victoria Best I firmly believe you can never dismiss any genre of book or any particular fictional setting as not your cup of tea, because written the right…
Interview by Victoria Best I was fortunate enough to catch up with Canadian Heather O’Neill, author of The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, over a skype IM call when she was…
Reviewed by Max Dunbar I first read House of Leaves as a teenager and fell in love with it: a grunge-emocore memory palace of a novel, about a suburban home, that gets…
By Linda Spalding The Hay Festival is mythic to Canadians. What I mean is that we all covet an invitation. Mine came by email a few months before the event…
Reviewed by Harriet Devine. “The world is ending,” she said. “The message has come from child to adult, child to adult, passed back down the generations from a thousand years…
Interview by Annabel Shiny’s Fiction Editor Annabel catches up with Bethan Roberts, author of Mother Island reviewed here. Annabel: Baby-snatching, child abduction, particularly when a child is too young to fend for…
Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell Bethan Roberts’s fourth novel takes on one of the primal fears of all parents – that of someone abducting your child. Mother Island is not, however,…
Reviewed by Harriet Devine She was her father’s daughter. It was said of her from the beginning. For one thing, Alma Whittaker looked precisely like Henry: ginger of hair, florid…
Written by Jane Carter It’s holiday reading time, so we asked a Cornish blogger to look at some of her favourite books set in Cornwall – and it also felt…