All Sorts of Possible by Rupert Wallis (YA)
Reviewed by Annabel I saw a repeat of a Horizon TV programme all about sinkholes the other month. Geology professor Ian Stewart was in Florida, which is the sinkhole capital of the…
Instrumental by James Rhodes
Reviewed by Annabel It’s hard to know where to start in writing about this memoir. I could be glib and say it’s about the healing power of classical music, which…
Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells by Helen Scales
Reviewed by Annabel There are large numbers of popular science books written about particle physics, space and the periodic table, ditto for medicine and the mind. There are fewer books about…
Riders by Jilly Cooper
Reviewed by Annabel Can you believe that it is thirty years since Jilly Cooper introduced us to Rutshire and her best-selling doorstop of sex and showjumping? Her publishers, Corgi, have…
I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers
Reviewed by Annabel To many, Sheers is primarily known as a Welsh poet. His 2005 collection Skirrid Hill was acclaimed, and he has presented some poetry programmes on the television, and wrote…
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
Reviewed by Annabel They say that every picture tells a story – or sometimes more. When seventeen year old Peggy finds an old photograph of her family and Oliver, the…
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell
Paperback review by Annabel A large part of the novel Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (which I reviewed here) was set twenty years after a global flu pandemic had wiped out…
The Door That Led to Where by Sally Gardner
YA review by Annabel Once Sally Gardner gained enough confidence to start writing novels for older children and teens, already being a fabulous illustrator and author of some great stories…
Hotel Arcadia by Sunny Singh
Reviewed by Annabel Sam thought that the first shots were in her nightmares. … No, she never thought of bullets, except in her dreams. Perhaps that is why she felt…
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Reviewed by Annabel To those of us living in the UK, it probably seems inconceivable that you can live a whole life without ever seeing the sea. It is this…
The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller
Reviewed by Annabel What do you do when you seriously lose your reading mojo? I tend to retreat into a palate-cleansing thriller to get mine back, but I’ve never had…
Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
Reviewed by Annabel Faber & Faber is one of my favourite publishers; in recent years with Faber Finds they’ve started to make the most of their impressive backlist – we’ve…
Naked at the Albert Hall by Tracey Thorn
Reviewed by Annabel After the success of her memoir Bedsit Disco Queen (which I reviewed here) in which she told us how she joined a band and had a brilliant…
All I Know Now by Carrie Hope Fletcher
Reviewed by Annabel Subtitled ‘Wonderings and Reflections on Growing Up Gracefully’, All I Know Now is part memoir, part advice guide for teens, by one of the big stars of vlogging. Carrie…
Birth of a Theorem: A Mathematical Adventure by Cédric Villani
Translated by Malcolm De Bevoise Review by Annabel It is a well-known fact that Stephen Hawking was persuaded to remove all the equations bar the single famous one, E =…
Fire Flowers by Ben Byrne
Reviewed by Annabel. The publisher Europa Editions is primarily known in the UK for bringing translated fiction, mainly from Europe, to English-speaking readers. However, eight months ago they signed their…
Interview with Jane Thynne on her Clara Vine Novels
Interview by Annabel A: Firstly, congratulations on A War of Flowers! It took the life and career of Clara Vine (Anglo-German film actress and British spy) to new and ever more thrilling…
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Reviewed by Annabel Unless you live in a hole in the ground (more of that later), it can’t have escaped your attention that Kazuo Ishiguro has…
The Field of the Cloth of Gold by Magnus Mills
Reviewed by Annabel Mills is one of my favourite authors; a new novel from him is a must-read for me. He has found a unique furrow in the world of…
Five Fascinating Facts About… Winston Graham
Compiled by Annabel. 1. Born in 1908 in Manchester, the Graham family moved to Perranporth in Cornwall when Winston was seventeen. He stayed there until 1959, eventually settling in East…
Ross Poldark by Winston Graham
Reviewed by Annabel In recent weeks, it seems that the entire female population of the UK (well, at least all those of a certain age!), have been glued to our…
Where I’m Reading From by Tim Parks
Reviewed by Annabel Many of us who are booklovers enjoy nothing more than reading a book about books. I’m familiar with Tim Parks through his novels, many of which I’ve…
Shiny New Author: An interview with Frances Vick
In the second of our series where we interview new authors, Annabel talks to Frances Vick, author of Chinaski. A. When did you first realise you wanted to be an author…
A Price to Pay by Alex Capus
Translated by John Brownjohn Reviewed by Annabel Alex Capus is a French-Swiss novelist who writes in German. He was born in France and now lives in Switzerland. He has written…