Orwell and Empire by Douglas Kerr
Review by Karen Langley George Orwell is still regarded as one of the 20th Century’s towering literary figures. Best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four, he…
Clouds over Paris: The Wartime Notebooks of Felix Hartlaub
Translated by Simon Beattie Review by Karen Langley Felix Hartlaub is a name relatively unknown in the English-speaking world: the son of an art historian/museum director who fell foul of…
A Waiter in Paris: Adventures in the Dark Heart of the City by Edward Chisholm
Review by Karen Langley Back in 1933, George Orwell published his groundbreaking work Down and Out in Paris and London, which explored his experiences of poverty in both cities. Now,…
The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger
Review by Karen Langley The name of Emeric Pressburger is remembered for his sterling contribution to the world of film during the 20th century. Together with Michael Powell, he was…
A Spectre, Haunting: On The Communist Manifesto by China Miéville
Review by Karen Langley It’s hard to think of a book or political system more reviled nowadays than The Communist Manifesto and the various regimes it spawned. A political tract…
Letters to Gwen John by Celia Paul
Reviewed by Karen Langley In recent years, artist Gwen John’s star has risen, with her work nowadays receiving much more acclaim than that of her brother Augustus. However, this was…
Exiles: Three Island Journeys by William Atkins
Review by Karen Langley In our turbulent modern world, the concept of exile is never far away from the headlines. Wars and religious conflicts constantly cause human beings to be…
The Trouble with Happiness and Other Stories by Tove Ditlevsen
Translated by Michael Favala Goldman Review by Karen Langley The last few years have seen Danish author Tove Ditlevsen’s star in the ascendant following the translation of her autofictional Copenhagen…
After Agatha: Women Write Crime by Sally Cline
Review by Karen Langley We readers have never been able to get enough of crime fiction, it seems, and in the 21st century the genre is as popular as it…
The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky, A Crime and Its Punishment by Kevin Birmingham
Review by Karen Langley The bicentenary of the birth of Fyodor Dostoevsky has seen a flurry of books about the man and his work. I covered Alex Christofi’s Dostoevsky in…
The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir
Translated by Lauren Elkin Review by Karen Langley Simone de Beauvoir is probably best recognised nowadays for her ground-breaking feminist work The Second Sex, as well as her connections with…
Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki
Translated by Karen Van Dyck Review by Karen Langley Coming of age stories are a perennial favourite in both classic and modern literature; and although much past writing has focused…
An Evening with Claire by Gaito Gazdanov
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Review by Karen Langley Recent years have seen an upturn of interest in Russian émigré authors from the 20th century; there were, of course, famous names…
On Love and Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt by Ann Heberlein
Translated by Alice Menzies Review by Karen Langley The concept of “the banality of evil”, coined by philosopher Hannah Arendt, has become famous (some might say notorious) since she developed…
Dancing on Ropes: Translators and the Balance of History by Anna Aslanyan
Review by Karen Langley As bookish people, when we think about translation we’re probably thinking about it in literary terms. There’s a rich seam of literature from other languages available…
Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton by Gail Crowther
Review by Karen Langley Despite their groundbreaking achievements as poets, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton are still too often remembered for their dramatic lives and tragic ends. A pair of…
Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life by Alex Christofi
Review by Karen Langley It could be argued that much fiction is in a sense autobiographical, and one man who certainly poured his life into his work, drawing on his…
Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me by John Sutherland
Review by Karen Langley Monica Jones, the subject of a new biography by John Sutherland, is a fascinating figure who, up until now, has generally been discussed in terms of…
Reviewer’s Choice: Twentieth Century Paris (1900-1950) – A Literary Guide for Travellers by Marie-José Gransard
While Shiny New Books concentrates on the new, occasionally, we give our reviewers room to share previously published – ie: ‘not Shiny New Books’ – they have been enjoying. Review…
Circles and Squares: The Lives and Loves of the Hampstead Modernists by Caroline Maclean
Review by Karen Langley The early part of the 20th century was a period when modern art was flourishing. New ways of living were being explored, abstract art forms were…
Spotlight on Publishers: Renard Press
Questions by Karen Langley 2020 has in many ways been the year of independent publishers; print books have been fighting back against the march of the e-book, and recently any…
Revolutionary Women from Gallic Books
Reviewed by Karen Langley French literature doesn’t lack a wide range of great women writers; the names which spring most readily to mind are those like George Sand, Colette, and…
A Sound Mind by Paul Morley
Reviewed by Karen Langley Paul Morley made his name as a music critic for the New Musical Express back in the halcyon punk days of the 1970s and 1980s; a…
One Billion Years to the End of the World by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Translated by Antonina W. Bouis Reviewed by Karen Langley Science fiction writing often gets a bad press; dismissed as lightweight genre writing, mocked for some of the horrendous cover art…