Review by Simon Thomas When Michael Cunningham set out to write Unsayable, I wonder if it started as a book about writing that couldn’t keep out memoir. Or perhaps it started as a memoir whi

Review by Michael Eaude Downfall of a King reuses material from the author’s 2003 political biography of King Juan Carlos of Spain and updates it. In the years since, torrents of water have

Review by Annabel Flame Tree Publishing's anthology series, 'Beyond & Within' has a broad remit to collect short stories from a variety of genres. Their latest crime collection, Guilty Sec

Reviewed by Harriet Maggie O’Farrell’s new book has had quite a mixed reception - some high praise and some rather damning criticism. Having read it myself, which took a long time because

Review by Karen Langley The Crime Writers’ Association was formed in 1953 by author John Creasey, with a stated aim to promote, support and celebrate crime writing, and writers of all crime

Annabel talks to Jacqui Kibby Jacqui Kibby is founder and Publishing Director of Scorpius Books, a UK indie book publisher based in Colchester and a member of the Indie Press Network. Scorpius

A while ago, I was contacted by Jacqui Kibby, founder and publisher of UK indie Scorpius Books based in Colchester. Scorpius was the first UK publisher to create dyslexic friendly editions especial…

Review by Liz Dexter “Having been lost in the Great Fire and again to the Blitz, Christ Church has now arguably been lost again, figuratively, to London’s neoliberal appetites.”(p. 35)

Review by Liz Dexter While I come at this topic through the lens of my own experience, I share this journey because I believe anyone can learn and benefit from the lessons that flamboyance has to

Reviewed by Liz Dexter The countryside belongs to everyone. (Michael Morpurgo, Foreword) This interesting volume by the renowned and doughty nature and countryside publisher Little Toller

Reviewed by Harriet Just out in paperback, Lucy Steeds’ debut novel was greeted with much praise when published at the beginning of last year, and was selected by Waterstones as their Book o

Review by Annabel Les Fugitives is a small indie press that initially specialised in French translations, of both literary fiction and nonfiction (see here). Lately, they've widened their scope to

Review by Liz Dexter Then there was Dungeness itself. True to its contrary nature, slack water came around the headland a couple of hours either side of the peak or trough of the tide. It was the

Compiled by Annabel We haven't done one of our archive reading lists for a couple of years, but what better occasion to celebrate belatedly than Sir David Attenborough reaching his 100th birthday

Translated by Kate McNaughton Review by Karen Langley Nobel-prize winner Herta Muller is a Romanian-German novelist, poet and essayist who’s known for work which captures the experience o

Review by Peter Reason Melissa Harrison combines duties as novelist and nature writer. Her nature writing often takes a narrative form, and her novels pay greater respect to the contribution o

Review by Rob Spence We don’t celebrate the linguistic diversity of these isles anything like enough. Just think of the rich heritage of Welsh, Gaelic, Irish, Manx, Scots, Cornish, Norn -- n

Reviewed by Harriet ‘That woman is a hyena in petticoats’ I wonder how many people would have guessed from the title and the cover clip from a portrait who the hyena was. She was of c

Review by Peter Reason I am a great fan of Amitav Ghosh both for his fiction and his non-fiction.  I was introduced to his writing when The Hungry Tide was set as required reading for an

Review by Liz Dexter Having had the great fortune to have travelled on many exciting railways to many exiting places elsewhere in the world, from the wide-open plains of America to the tea pla

Translated by Ros Schwartz Review by Annabel Back in 2014, Penguin embarked on republishing all seventy of the Maigret novels in new translations over a period of a few years, all with a di

Reviewed by Helen Parry Of all the arts, ballet casts perhaps the most magical spell. The classics of the repertoire are set in otherworldly realms, with entrancing music and fabulous costumes

Review by Rob Spence The world of 2026 is a world in turmoil. The relentless 24-hour barrage of news brings daily accounts of war, massacres, invasions, extraordinary political manoeuvres, the

Reviewed by Harriet Plenty of people will be thinking about Shakespeare at the moment, following the release of the wonderful film Hamnet. It’s taken from the novel of the same name, which I

Review by Annabel Welsh author Emma Glass’s fourth novel, Mrs Jekyll, gained her a second longlisting for the Dylan Thomas Award in 2025. Her debut, Peach, was also longlisted, and although

Review by Peter Reason Four people, their lives widely separated by time and geography, set out on journeys away from home, journeys that might well be seen as secular pilgrimages. Their four

Interview by Harriet Lars Mytting is an award-winning Norwegian author. His surprise non-fiction bestseller Norwegian Wood has sold more than 700000 copies worldwide, and his novel The Sixteen Tre

Review by Rebecca Foster If, like me, you’ve been following Rachel Joyce’s career ever since her 2012 debut, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, I have good news to impart: The Homemade

Review by Rob Spence Ada Leverson should really be better known than she is. Born in 1862, she is probably best remembered now as a devoted friend of Oscar Wilde. She was there to greet him wh

Review by Peter Reason I am a fan of Richard Powers. I read The Overstory four times, appreciating how the writing draws together an animist worldview with ecological activism while also engag

Review by Rob Spence When I started reading this quirkily entertaining novel, I was reminded of a remarkable Turkish film I saw some years ago. The film, 10 to 11, written and directed by Peli

Reviewed by Harriet It has always been my intention to practice the arts of pretence and counterfeit on the reader. So wrote Muriel Spark in an unpublished Author’s Note to The Prime of

Review by Max Dunbar A Wrong in Time At a literary festival in 1993 Thom Graves watches an author being interviewed. It's slow going: Toward the end of the hourlong interview the discus

Review by Peter Reason This slender collection of writing around the theme of freshwater is published by the Wellcome Collection to accompany its current exhibition of the same name, which ‘

Review by Annabel Starting back in 2013, Penguin began reissuing the novels of Georges Simenon in new or recent translations with distinctive photographic details on the covers. All 75 Maigrets ar

Translated by Tim Mohr Review by Annabel The main theme of this novel is not new, but Bronsky has such a refreshing take on it that I couldn’t help but devour it from the first page. It o

Review by Annabel It's been a four-year wait for this, Natasha Brown's second novel. Her first, Assembly, was stunning, winning many plaudits. It's a moving and beautifully written novella tol

Review by Peter Reason ‘The first time I met a bird close-up, it was dead. A raven.’ From this grab-your-attention first line and the evocative description of this encounter, I am ho

Review by Peter Reason It is very unlikely that many readers of Shiny New Books have missed Robert Macfarlane’s new book. It has been reviewed in most of the major periodicals; chosen as ‘

Review by Liz Dexter I was immersed in a white settler myth that had always allowed me to perceive them [her ancestors] as innocent bystanders rather than oppressors. I’ve been interest

Reviewed by Karen Langley The My Reading series from Oxford University Press takes as its premise that the best book recommendations come from someone who cares for the work in question; books

Translated by Ann Goldstein Review by Rob Spence In the mountainous rural region of Abruzzo, a local community is blighted by an event of brutal savagery. Thirty years later, its effects ar

Review by Helen Parry Suppose Germany and Britain went to war and Britain lost and was absorbed into the German empire? What would British people do? What would you do? This is the basis of Sa

My first encounter with Eve Smith was with her second novel, Off Target, in which genetic engineering of children is normal. I very much enjoyed it – spec fiction being my favourite type of g…

Review by Max Dunbar There's lots of historical fiction around but generally it doesn't work for me. I feel like the author is bludgeoning you with their research, having worked so hard on it,

Reviewed by Harriet India has always had a great attraction for me. I didn’t manage to go there until I was in my thirties, but I’ve visited countless times since then and hope I’ll do s

Translated by Bibbi Lee Review by Karen Langley Recent years have seen a spate of newly translated fictions being made available by Penguin Classics in their ‘Demy’ series; these works

Reviewed by Harriet I had never heard of Janet Burroway until Mike Walmer recently republished her 1965 novel, The Dancer and the Dance. It was the second of her eight novels. Considering that

Translated by Hayden Trowell Review by Rob Spence Quirky Japanese literature seems to be all the rage these days. Every British bookshop seems well-stocked with Tokyo-based stories about ca

Translated by George Burnham Ives Review by Rob Spence Version 1.0.0 Opposite the title page of this new edition of George Sand’s novel is a list of her works of fiction. It contains 76 no