May 19, 2022 America Over the Water by Shirley Collins Review by Annabel Shirley Collins is widely regarded as one of the most influential British folk singers of our times. Often singing alongside her…
April 28, 2022 Mischief Acts by Zoe Gilbert Review by Annabel At this early stage of the year, it may be a bit forward of me to suggest that I may have…
April 26, 2022 Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus Review by Annabel Sometimes the hype is true, and a publisher’s lead-title for the season really is worth the advance praise heaped on it….
April 19, 2022 The Rabbit Factor by Antti Tuomainen Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston Review by Annabel I’m always interested in adding new Nordic authors to my reading list, which is…
April 14, 2022 The Gift of a Radio by Justin Webb Review by Annabel The TV news came on and a lugubrious looking chap in a light-coloured suit with a deep, plummy voice said something…
April 12, 2022 Brainspotting: Adventures in Neurology by A. J. Lees Reviewed by Annabel Dr Andrew Lees is a neurology professor at the National Hospital in London the first English hospital dedicated exclusively to treating…
March 29, 2022 Whatever Gets You Through the Night by Charlie Higson Review by Annabel Back in the 1990s, Higson wrote four thrillers for adults, they were dark, nasty and funny. But after them he got…
March 22, 2022 Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus Review by Annabel You may know Annie Macmanus as ‘Annie Mac’, the fomer Radio 1 DJ. She left the station last year to pursue…
March 3, 2022 The Science of Life and Death in Frankenstein by Sharon Ruston Review by Annabel Gaskell Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, her novel conceived during that momentous trip to Geneva in 1816 during ‘the year without a summer’,…
January 25, 2022 Ariadne by Jennifer Saint Review by Annabel Over recent years, I have been much enjoying the current vogue for the retelling of ancient myths and ancient history, especially…
November 30, 2021 Are We Having Fun Yet? By Lucy Mangan Review by Annabel Those of you who’ve read journalist and author Lucy Mangan’s ‘memoir of childhood reading’, Bookworm, (which Liz reviewed here) will rejoice…
October 26, 2021 Raising Laughter: How the Sitcom Kept Britain Smiling in the ‘70s by Robert Sellers Review by Annabel I watched an awful lot of telly in the 1970s, my formative teenage years. It was thus inevitable that between the…
October 21, 2021 The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles Review by Annabel Amor Towles’s first novel, Rules of Civility, was published in 2011 when he was in his mid-forties. It was such a…
September 30, 2021 Madgermanes by Birgit Weyhe Translated by Katy Derbyshire Review by Annabel It’s been exciting to see the variety of German books in translation coming from V&Q Books who…
September 23, 2021 Star Turns by Tim Walker Review by Annabel Tim Walker’s name may ring a bell, particularly with broadsheet readers. During his career as a journalist, he has written for…
September 14, 2021 The Red Planet: A Natural History of Mars, by Simon Morden Review by Annabel Who hasn’t been enthralled by the idea of there being ‘Life on Mars’ even if said life ends up as the…
September 9, 2021 The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino Translated by Rebecca Copeland Review by Annabel Japanese author Natsuo Kirino is primarily known for her crime novels, of which Out is the most…
August 5, 2021 Line by Niall Bourke Reviewed by Annabel If I searched, I could probably fill a small shelf full of novels that have a sub-niche of their own that…
July 22, 2021 Everyone Is Still Alive by Cathy Rentzenbrink Reviewed by Annabel You may know Cathy Rentzenbrink through her heart-breaking memoir published a few years ago. In The Last Act of Love, she…
July 13, 2021 Beeswing: Fairport, Folk Rock and Finding My Voice 1967-75 by Richard Thompson Review by Annabel There are still people who doubtless haven’t heard of Richard Thompson. To those of us in the know though, he is…
June 16, 2021 Five Fascinating Facts About… Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Compiled by Annabel The Royal Society of Literature is celebrating ‘Dalloway Day‘ today – a Wednesday in the middle of June – when Virginia…
June 15, 2021 Rabbits by Terry Miles Review by Annabel As I sat down to start reading this book, a tweet pinged on my phone and I glanced over – someone…
June 8, 2021 Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal Translated by Jessica Moore Reviewed by Annabel Maylis de Kerangal is a novelist whose primary focus is not the characters that people her books,…
June 1, 2021 The Muse by Nell Dunn Review by Annabel There is a particular sub-genre of memoir that almost goes into biography but fundamentally remains a memoir. I’m talking about memoirs…
May 20, 2021 The Assistant by Kjell Ola Dahl Translated by Don Bartlett Reviewed by Annabel Kjell Ola Dahl is one of Norway’s foremost crime writers, especially known for his ‘Oslo detectives’ series,…
