Reviewed by Helen Parry We Swineys were the hairiest girls in Harristown, Kildare, and the hairiest you’d find anywhere in Ireland from Priesthaggard to Sluggery. That is, our limbs were…
Winkled out by Annabel Gaskell 1. Although we’ve come to know Aickman as an author, he was a prominent conservationist. In 1946, he was a co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association….
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton When Shiny New Books asked me if I’d like to review The New Sylva I thought it sounded interesting. When it arrived I thought it looked interesting and…
Reviewed by Victoria Best Readers of this delightful series are probably aware that the ITV adaptation will soon be on our screens, with James Norton playing the priest-turned-detective, Sidney Chambers…
Reviewed by Harriet Devine Strike hated paddling on the periphery of a case, forced to watch as others dived for clues, leads and information. He sat up late with the…
Imagine a country with the lowest salaries in Western Europe, where about 40 percent of young people are unemployed, and where 50,000 shops went out of business in 2011 and…
Reviewed by Claire If I were knowingly heading into an active theatre of war, I like to think I would go armed with the necessary information, wardrobe, and exit plan…
Reviewed by T.V. LoCicero The Mysterious Worlds of Henrique Monroe This is the ninth novel by Richard Zimler, an American-born writer who spent his first thirty-four years in the U.S.,…
Reviewed by Max Dunbar This study of how James Joyce’s Ulysses came to be published and set in type is almost as essential as the book itself. The odds were against it,…
Translated by John Cullen Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite In diving, decompression is the gradual reduction of ambient pressure as a diver returns to the surface, which allows the inert gases…
Translated by Sorcha McDonagh Reviewed by Harriet Devine Hooray for Hesperus, who sent me this book for review back in the early spring. I picked it up straight away and…
Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell 2014 marks the centenary of the birth of Robert Aickman, an author who once encountered demands that you read more of his output – particularly his…
By the Shiny New Books Editors The four SNB Editors had a round robin e-mail discussion about our reactions to the announcement of the Man Booker Prize longlist going around…
Reviewed by Victoria Best When Jerry Seinfeld remarked that ‘There is no such thing as fun for all the family’, he could have had the Sackville-Wests in mind. In the…
Reviewed by Victoria Best I love novels about life on the stage, though they are a relatively rare genre. Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes was one of the key books of my childhood,…
Translated by Thomas Teal Reviewed by Simon Thomas It’s always interesting to see the genesis of a favourite writer. In Issue 1 of Shiny New Books, I was able to…
Reviewed by Claire Boyle The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham is like a snow scene uninterrupted by footprints, beautiful to look at and perfect in its composition. It opens on a…
Reviewed by Jodie Robson I was not happy as a child, although from time to time I was content. I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else. It’s…
Reviewed by Victoria Best I do love a book with a really good jaw-dropping twist, and goodness me does The Headmaster’s Wife have one of those. But a device that’s great to…
Translated by Stephen Rendall Reviewed by Falaise The Cemetery of Swallows is a recent addition to Europa Editions’ excellent World Noir imprint, which, as you may guess from its name, features…
Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell My first encounter with Alan Lightman was through his 1992 novel Einstein’s Dreams, a fictional account of the scientist during the period he was working on the…
Translated by Soren A. Gauger and Guy Torr Reviewed by Karen Langley The boundaries and allegiances in Europe moved and blurred continually during the early 20th century, and many writers…
Reviewed by Simon Thomas A few years ago, I very much enjoyed A Truth Universally Acknowledged, an anthology of writers and readers celebrating Jane Austen, which was also edited by Susannah…
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is a famous and fascinating book, and I think anyone interested in the Great War, or the wider question of how wars begin, would find…
