Unsayable by Michael Cunningham

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

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Downfall of a King: Juan Carlos of Spain, by Paul Preston

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

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Best Served Cold: Chilling Short Stories of Crime & Revenge (Beyond and Within), edited by Paul Kane & Marie O’Regan

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

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Land by Maggie O’Farrell

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

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Guilty Secrets: From the Crime Writers Association (Beyond and Within), edited by Martin Edwards

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

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Spotlight on Publishers: Scorpius Books

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

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Two from Scorpius Books – a UK indie publisher of dyslexic friendly editions

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…

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Lost London: From Crystal Palace to Heston Airport, a History in 25 Missing Buildings, by Paul Knox

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)

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Flamboyance: The Art of Burning Brightly by Jack Parlett

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

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Future Rural: Imaging Tomorrow’s Countryside, edited by Adrian Cooper

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

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The Artist by Lucy Steeds

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

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Wilderness of Mirrors by Olufemi Terry

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

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Lifeboat at the End of the World: A Volunteer’s Story, by Dominic Gregory

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

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Shiny Archive Reading List #5 – Nature & Ecology

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

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The Village on the Edge of the World: Writing and Surviving Ceaușescu’s Romania, by Herta Muller

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

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The Given World by Melissa Harrison

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

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A Day Between Weathers: Collected Poems, 1938-1978, by William J. Tait

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

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The Hyena’s Daughter by Jupiter Jones

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

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Wild Fictions: Essays by Amitav Ghosh

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

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Tom Chesshyre, Slow Trains Around Britain: Notes from a 4,088-Mile Adventure on 143 Rides, by Tom Chesshyre

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

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The Cat by Georges Simenon

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

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The Apple and the Pearl, by Rym Kechacha

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

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The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit

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

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What’s in a Name: How Historians Know Shakespeare was Shakespeare,  by Susan Dwyer Amussen

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

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Mrs Jekyll by Emma Glass

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

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Everything the Light Touches by Janice Pariat – Reviewer’s choice

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

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Interview with Lars Mytting, author of The Sister Bells Trilogy

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

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The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce

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

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Love at Second Sight by Ada Leverson

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

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Playground by Richard Powers

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

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