The Baklava Club by Jason Goodwin
Reviewed by Helen Parry ‘I’ve been complaining,’ Yashim said, ‘how Istanbul is overrun with foreigners these days. As if it was ever any different’. It’s 1842, and three Italian exiles…
Solo by William Boyd
Reviewed by Falaise Although Octopussy was the last James Bond film to reveal the name of its sequel in the end credits, the iconic phrase, “James Bond will return” continues to appear…
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…
Field of Shadows by Dan Waddell
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…
Computing with Quantum Cats by John Gribbin
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…
Maggie Gee on bringing Virginia Woolf to 21st-Century Manhattan
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…
Virginia Woolf in Manhattan by Maggie Gee
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…
Belkin’s Stories by Alexander Pushkin
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…
The Severed Streets by Paul Cornell
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….
Five Fascinating Facts About… Alexander Pushkin
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…
Lost Luggage by Jordi Punti
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 –…
An Island Odyssey by Hamish Haswell-Smith
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…
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
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…
August Folly, Summer Half and The Brandons by Angela Thirkell
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…
Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones
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…
Thursday’s Children by Nicci French
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…
The Stillman by Tom McCulloch
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…
The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O’Neill
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…
An Interview with Heather O’Neill
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…
The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski
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…
Philipp Meyer and Linda Spalding talk to Kirsty Wark at Hay
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…
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
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…
A Short Interview with Bethan Roberts
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…
Mother Island by Bethan Roberts
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,…