The Making of Home by Judith Flanders
Reviewed by Harriet One of the most important distinctions made by Judith Flanders in this fascinating book is that between the concepts of house and home. While a house is…
Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil Brinton
Reviewed by Harriet Devine There is one characteristic which may be safely said to belong to nearly all happily married couples – that of desiring to see equally happy marriages…
The Smile Revolution by Colin Jones
Reviewed by Harriet I must admit I was initially drawn to this book by the lovely painting on the cover, a self-portrait by the great French artist Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Lebrun….
Entry Island by Peter May
Reviewed by Harriet Devine I’d never read anything by Peter May when this book was sent me for review. The first thing that struck me was that Peter May must…
Fall From Grace by Tim Weaver
Reviewed by Harriet Devine When I started reading Fall From Grace, I hadn’t realised it was part of a series – the fifth part, to be exact. This is always risky…
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
Reviewed by Harriet Devine Phew! Well, the term unputdownable is often bandied around – I’ve done some bandying myself – but there were times when Sarah Waters’ latest novel actually…
Facial Justice by LP Hartley
Reviewed by Harriet Devine The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. So, famously, wrote LP Hartley at the beginning of his most famous novel, The Go Between. But what…
Winter Siege by Ariana Franklin and Samantha Norman
Reviewed by Harriet I had not heard of Ariana Franklin until a few months ago, when I was given her Mistress of the Art of Death as an early birthday present. Seeing…
A Scream in Soho by John G. Brandon
Reviewed by Harriet Devine “A lace handkerchief without even a monogram on it and a bloodstained knife without fingerprints or marks of any kind”, McCarthy said. “There’s nothing whatever in…
The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness
Reviewed by Harriet Devine The Book of Life is indeed a mighty tome, as Dan Brown would say. I read it with great delight, but was seriously wondering all the time…
Five Fascinating Facts about… Frances Hodgson Burnett
Compiled by Harriet Devine 1. Frances was born near Manchester, in England. Her father was a successful ironmonger, but her family fell on hard times after his death when she…
An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankel
Translated by Laurie Thompson Reviewed by Harriet Devine This book is a bit of a curiosity. When it arrived and I realised what it was, I wondered if it was…
How to be Both by Ali Smith
Reviewed by Harriet Devine I’m not one of those people who rush out and buy all the Booker longlisted books on principle, or even the shortlisted ones, or even the…
The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill
Reviewed by Harriet Let me say at once that I absolutely loved this book. I’ve read all the previous seven of Susan Hill’s Simon Serrailler series with pleasure, though I…
The Death of the Poet by N. Quentin Woolf
Reviewed by Harriet Devine How can I best describe to you this wonderful, powerful book? If I tell you that it’s about a man who falls desperately in love with…
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
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…
Death in Pont-Aven by Jean-Luc Bannalec
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…
Q&A with Mike Ripley
Questions by Harriet Devine Harriet: I really enjoyed reading Mr Campion’s Farewell, and, as a lifetime fan of Allingham, I wasn’t sure if I would. But I’m full of curiosity as…
Mr Campion’s Farewell by Mike Ripley
Reviewed by Harriet Devine I think I was about eleven when my mother, responding to my cry that I had nothing to read, gave me a copy of Margery Allingham’s Sweet…
One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson
Reviewed by Harriet Devine If I were to make a list of things I probably wouldn’t want to read a book about, aeroplanes, cars, baseball and finance would be somewhere near…
The Lie by Helen Dunmore
Reviewed by Susan Osborne. If you spend any time at all perusing reviews, on the internet or otherwise, you can’t have failed to notice the plethora of novels about the…
Murder Underground and Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay
Reviewed by Harriet Devine Mavis Doriel Hay (1894-1979) wrote only three crime novels, all published in the 1930s. They slipped completely under the radar until the British Library decided to…
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) – A Biographical Note
Written by Harriet Devine. She will love deeply – suffer terribly – she will have glorious moments to compensate. Emily Byrd Starr, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s most autobiographical heroine, remembered these…
Domestic Manners of the Americans by Frances Trollope
Reviewed by Harriet Devine No author of the present day has been at once so much read, so much admired and so much abused. So wrote the New Monthly Review…