Our latest reviews
Nanny Piggins and the Runaway Lion: R.A. Spratt
Would you believe it? A pig that is a nanny, a chocolate addicted pig that is a nanny! Let me introduce you to the hilarious, clever and fashionable Nanny Piggins.
If you haven’t read the first two books in the…
Scarlett Fever: Maureen Johnson
Scarlett Martin might seem like she lives a charmed life. Her family own an old New York hotel and she is an assistant to a Broadway theatrical agent while still attending one of the top schools in the city –…
The Surrendered: Chang-Rae Lee
June Han is only 11 years old when her family is torn apart by the Korean War. Her will to survive is far stronger than her capacity to heal and her emotional life is stunted so profoundly that it reverberates…
American XI: Ain't No Grave: Johnny Cash
The final instalment in Cash’s celebrated American Recording series, this release is the final piece of the puzzle for many Johnny Cash fans around the world. As with the others from the series, it is produced by Rick Rubin and…
Rush To Relax: Eddy Current Suppression Ring
ECSR made the UK Guardian’s top 50 albums of 2009 at number 28, a list also bothered by the Drones. In a year that gave us some fairly stunning records, that’s quite an amazing feat for a very indie, very…
The Last Station: Jay Parini
From the tragic love of Anna Karenina to the marshalling of almost 600 characters in War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy’s mastery of fiction is undisputed. Which makes it even more devastating that the final years of his life should…
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand: Helen Simonson
Welcome to the quaint and beautiful English village of Edgecombe St Mary. Major Ernest Pettigrew, Royal Sussex, retired, is quite happy living his insular life of golf games with other men of standing, avoiding the perpetually embarrassing ladies of the…
The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers: Paul Torday
Paul Torday, who gave us the comic novel Salmon Fishing in the Yemen in 2006, returns here with his fourth novel. Torday writes with confidence and clarity, like many other writers – such as Toni Morrison and Annie Proulx –…
All That Follows: Jim Crace
When Leonard Lessing recognises a gunman’s face on television as an old acquaintance, he must decide whether or not to alert the authorities. It is choices such as this one which shape the plot and the subsequent turns it takes…
The Theory of Light and Matter: Andrew Porter
What strikes the reader most when reading Andrew Porter’s debut short-story anthology is the ease and speed with which one finishes it. Porter is an accomplished storyteller and his ability to pierce right at the heart of ordinary people’s fears…
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